


Deception

by always_a_queen



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Mild Language, Non-Explicit Sex, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-02-20 04:31:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2415032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/always_a_queen/pseuds/always_a_queen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Felicity Smoak stumbles onto Division's radar when she hacks the CIA searching for information about Jacob Smoak. She doesn't know that Jacob Smoak became the target of Division after he uncovered information about one of their operations - code named "Verdant" - when she was very little. She doesn't know that four months later, one of Division's assets neutralized the threat. All she knows is that he's her father, he's been gone since she was seven, and she wants to know why."<br/>//<br/>Or: Oliver Queen is a rogue assassin who used to work for a secret black ops unit of the government, Felicity Smoak is a computer hacker who has been recruited to help find him, and nothing is what it appears to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This is, for all intents and purposes, a Nikita!AU, but really, the only thing I've lifted from that show is Division, so long as you get the idea that Division is a secret black ops organization that has gone rogue, you shouldn't need to have watched Nikita to understand this fic. That said, I highly recommend it. It's an amazing show and it's on Netflix.  
> 2\. I'm totally playing it fast and loose with the Arrow timeline for this fic.  
> 3\. ~~Five chapters is an estimate for how much I need to get this story down. It might be more. It might be less.~~ HA. REMEMBER WHEN I SAID THIS? I WAS SO WRONG.  
>  4\. ~~The rating might go up depending on how this story develops in future chapters.~~ The rating is now M. Please read responsibly.

In the summer of 1992, Rebecca Merlyn is shot and left for dead in an alleyway in the section of Starling City known as "the Glades." One month after her death, Malcolm Merlyn disappears completely, leaving his seven year old son, Tommy, in the care of nannies, housekeepers, and the teachers of the expensive private school he attends.

Essentially, Tommy Merlyn's father abandons him when he's only seven years old. The Queen family takes him in as best friend and older brother. Robert Queen teaches him how to fish; Moira Queen teaches him how to dress. Oliver teaches him how to move on while Thea teaches him how to laugh again. It's almost eight years before Malcolm comes back to Starling City, and by that time Tommy wants nothing to do with him.

And then Oliver Queen drowns, and Tommy's world breaks apart all over again.

He finds his peace in Laurel Lance, in comforting her. In many ways, she becomes the only good thing in his life. His father cuts him off from his trust fund, he feels helpless to stop Thea's downward spiral, and the absence of Oliver in his life only seems to get sharper by the day.

The idea for the club strikes him three years after Oliver's death. It's possible he's just a little bit wasted at the time. His first idea is to name it after his friend, but he doesn't think that _Queens_ is really the best name to attract the clientele he's hoping for.

Thea's there at the opening, grinning from ear to ear even as he takes a flask of champagne from her hand and clicks his tongue at her. After passing the flute off to a waiter, he bends to kiss her on the cheek.

Laurel shows up a second later, threading her arms around his middle and pressing a kiss to the back of his neck. "You did it," she whispers in his ear. "I'm so proud of you."

"I wish Oliver could see it," he says.

Laurel's hold gets just a little tighter. She's not great at dealing with the idea that the boyfriend that cheated on her with her sister and then died was also Tommy's best friend. She doesn't know how to miss Oliver, not yet, but she has learned how to allow Tommy to miss him even though she can't. Somehow, Tommy thinks it actually helps her to know he still longs for his best friend.

"I know," she tells him. "I wish he could see it too."

* * *

 It's Laurel he's trying to find when the Glades' fall, desperately racing through a city that's collapsing in on itself in order to get to CNRI.

The building is falling to pieces when he gets there, but he doesn't care because Laurel's inside and he has to get her out of there. If she gets out, if she's safe, it doesn't matter what happens to him.

"I love you," he says, "Go."

After the building collapses on him, Tommy doesn't wake up in a hospital. Instead he wakes in a grey room, blinking against the brightness of the fluorescent lights and letting his fingers trace across a jagged white scar dashed across his ribcage.

"Good," a woman's voice says, "You're awake."

Tommy sits up in bed and turns in the direction of the voice just as the woman in question steps into the light. She's wearing a pair of black yoga pants and a grey tank top. Her dark hair is piled in a bun on the top of her head, a few stray strands falling around her face.

"Who are you?" he asks.

"My name is Shado." She has a calming, steady voice. "Welcome to Division."

"What happened? What did you do to me?"

"You died. We brought you back."

He _died_? That's impossible. The last thing he remembers is running after Laurel, getting her out of the building and --

\-- the weight of concrete on top of him, sharp pain piercing his ribcage, wetness spreading over his shirt, breathing getting harder and harder.

He _died_.

"What are you going to do to me?" he asks, scrambling back on the bed, looking for _anything_ that could be used as a weapon. Anything that could help him get out of here.

"Relax. I'm not going to hurt you." She says it like she could, and he believes her. This woman doesn't scream _dangerous_ , but the way she stands screams _deadly_.

"Where am I?" His throat feels raw, like he's been swallowing gravel. "Why am I here?"

"Because," she answers. "We need you to help us find someone."

"Who?" Tommy asks,

"Oliver Queen."

And Tommy laughs. "Good luck with that. Oliver Queen drowned in the North China Sea six years ago."

"Actually," an all-too-familiar-voice says, "That's not exactly true."

Another figure steps out of the shadows, and Tommy's blood runs cold.

"Hello, Tommy," Malcolm Merlyn says, "I think it's time for you to join the real family business."

* * *

 Felicity Smoak stumbles onto Division's radar when she hacks the CIA searching for information about Jacob Smoak. She doesn't know that Jacob Smoak became the target of Division after he uncovered information about one of their operations - code named "Verdant" - when she was very little. She doesn't know that four months later, one of Division's assets neutralized the threat.

All she knows is that he's her father, he's been gone since she was seven, and she wants to know why.

At first, Division sets its sights on taking Felicity out, but shortly after she peeks into Pandora's box, she goes completely off grid. There's no sign of her for over eight months, and when she does pop back up on their radar, it's when the CIA hauls her in for questioning.

She ends up in prison, but Division has always been good at getting people out of there. A few weeks later, and there's a tombstone with the name "Felicity Megan Smoak" etched on it and a nameless, unconscious blonde is dropped off on a twin bed in a Division holding cell.

She comes to slowly, vision blurry and head aching as the room spins around her. When her eyes focus, she sees a dark-haired man in a nice suit leaning against the far wall, his arms crossed in front of his chest. "Felicity Megan Smoak? My name is Tommy. Welcome to Division."

Slowly, Felicity sits up, taking in the room around her, the concrete walls, the secured door, the complete absence of furniture apart from the bed she's on. Nervously, her eyes flick from the gun strapped to Tommy's hip up to his face.

"Your old life is over," he says, stepping toward her. "I'm here to offer you a new one."

* * *

 "This," Tommy says, gesturing to a open room with screens mounted to every wall and workstations placed in a pattern across the floor, "is Operations. Every Op Division runs is powered through this room, through the analysts and technical support. You'll be working here soon. We want to get you up to speed as soon as possible."

"You're going to let me near computers?" she says, incredulous. They might as well give her the keys to this place, as well as hand over every dirty secret they've ever wanted to keep hidden. Computers are her best friends and in her hands, the world's worst enemies.

"Certain systems, yes." Tommy seems to catch on to what she's saying. "Felicity, the way Division's relationship started with you might be a little bit rocky, but I need you to believe me that we do good. We make the tough calls that no one else can, stop the bad guys when the government's hands are tied. We do what the system can't do. We save people like you, give you the tools to use your talents to _help_ people. Wouldn't you like to help people?"

She stays silent.

Tommy sighs. "Let's try this another way: You hacked the CIA because you want to know about your father, right?"

"Right."

"Division can give you the answers you're looking for. Division can help you find him or help you find justice for him. That's what you want more than anything, right?"

"I want to make the people who hurt him pay," she says. "I don't care what it takes."

He grins at her. "Then let us help you. Do we have a deal?"

Holding out his hand, Tommy stands before her, patiently waiting.

"One question," she says.

He shrugs. "Go ahead."

"Who is that?" Felicity asks, gesturing to the mugshot splashed across all of the screens.

"That," Tommy replies, "Is Oliver Queen. He was one of us. He went rogue just over a year ago, but he popped back up on our radar yesterday."

Frowning, Felicity studies the photo. "Is he dangerous?"

"Very," Tommy answers. "One of the first things we'd like you do to is to help us find him. That's assuming we have a deal?"

His hand is still held out to her, offering all the things she's wanted for so long. Justice. Vengeance. Answers.

Felicity takes it. "We have a deal."

* * *

 Division grabs Oliver when he inadvertently stumbles upon one of their _projects_ on the island of _Lian Yu_.

Since one of Division's mottos is "waste not, want not," the unit on sight decides that Oliver Queen is worth more alive than dead, and since he's already dead to the world, they might as well use him.

Oliver Queen wakes up in Division and the first person he sees is Malcolm Merlyn glowering down at him.

"So," he says, smugly, "How are you enjoying the afterlife?"

Oliver lunges at him, locking his hands around Merlyn's throat and _squeezing_. It takes three men to drag him off of Merlyn and a fast acting sedative to knock him out.

When he wakes up, he's hanging suspended from the ceiling, his arms chained above his head and his toes just barely brushing the floor.

The door opens. Merlyn enters with a satisfied smile on his face.

"Let's try this again," he says. "You're dead, this is hell, and the only way you're going to live through what happens next is to do exactly what I say or everyone you love will pay the price for your defiance. Do you understand, Oliver?"

Oliver grits his teeth, but nods his head.

"Good," Merlyn says. "Let's get you with the program then."

He presses a button on a small remote in his hand, and a series of videos begin to play, projected on the wall in front of Oliver.

Thea. Moira. Laurel. Tommy. Over and over again. The only four people who matter anymore.

Malcolm takes delight in pointing out the assets following them during their daily lives, describing the way each one of them will be harmed or killed if Oliver doesn't agree to work for him.

"I know who you love, Oliver, and I know how to hurt them so much they will wish for death. In fact, they'll beg for it."

The words for how badly he wants to kill Malcolm are right there, but Oliver can't say them. He can't say anything. Merlyn is right. One wrong move from him, and everyone and everything he loves - everything he's been fighting to get back to - will be gone in a blink.

"Believe me, Oliver," Malcolm says, "It is better for everyone if you stay dead. Do we have an understanding?"

Oliver hangs his head in defeat.

* * *

Oliver works for Division as a loyal asset for six years. That's not to say he completely gives up on the hope of one day going back to his old life. But he's learning how to be smart. Every assignment given to him is completed with as much excellence as he can muster. Every opportunity to display his loyalty to Division is not wasted.

Turns out, Oliver Queen of before was a four-time college drop-out, but Oliver Queen the survivor woke up in Division and discovered something he was good at. The pressure of surviving the crucible that is Division turns him into an excellent marksman, Malcolm's favorite go-to sniper, someone skilled the mechanics of parkour, and a force to be reckoned with in hand-to-hand combat.

Division teaches Oliver things he never would have learned otherwise.

Once he's earned Malcolm's trust, he starts to slip off to Starling City during his downtime. He keeps his eyes on Thea and Moira, Laurel and Tommy. He watches Verdant open from across the street and smiles when he sees that the line to get inside stretches down the block.

And he waits. Because one day, he's getting out. He's getting out and he's getting back to his life, the one where he's not responsible for pulling the trigger on a gun someone else has aimed and loaded. Someday, he's going home.

And then he finds out Malcolm was responsible for the Queen's Gambit going down. Robert Queen didn't like what Merlyn was doing with Division, so Merlyn had him taken out. One of his men rigged the Gambit. Oliver was just supposed to be an unfortunate casualty - until he washed up alive on the shores of _Lian Yu_.

Slowly, Oliver begins to pull together what he needs to make a break from Division: cash, an untraceable car, a place to go, weapons, ammo, fake identification, and a battle plan.

He so desperately needs a battle plan. Parasites as well fed and ingrained into the government as Division aren't rooted out easily, and he'd be foolish to think he could just go after them as a one-man army.

He needs help. Thankfully, he knows where to find it.

* * *

 

She's in the corner booth, her back to the wall so she can see the entire restaurant. Open in front of her is a grey laptop, and beside that is a cup of coffee. There's a pen between her bright pink lips.

"Felicity Smoak," he says. "Hi. I'm Oliver Queen."

She looks up at him, slowly dragging the pen from her mouth in a way that he should not find as enticing as he does. "What do you want, Oliver Queen?"

Grinning, he slides into the chair across from her. Normally, he'd like to be in her position, with all of the entrances and exits in his eye-line, but he'll make an exception this once. "What do you know about a black ops group of the government called Division?"

"I know they're an urban myth." Unamused, she takes a sip of her coffee. "That what you wanted to talk to me about?"

"They're not a myth. They exist."

"How do you know?"

"Because I was one of them."

"Bull."

"Truth."

Defiantly, she tips her head back. "Prove it."

He motions to her laptop casually. "Google me."

Her fingers fly across the keyboard. For a moment, she studies the results on her screen. Then she looks up at Oliver. "You're supposed to be dead."

"I'm not."

"Clearly."

"Division faked my death."

"You expect me to believe that Division sank a yacht to kidnap a spoiled playboy nobody but TMZ cares about in order to turn him into an assassin?"

Oliver doesn't say anything.

"Even if I believed all this, Oliver - which I don't - what is it you want from me?"

"Help. You were on Division's radar. They wanted to recruit you."

"And you're here to try to do that?"

"No," Oliver says, lips curving in almost a half smile, "I came to see if you wanted to help me stop them."

Closing her laptop, Felicity leans forward . Lowering her voice. "And why - if I even believed you - would I want to do that?"

 Oliver pulls a file folder from his jacket, tosses it onto the table in front of her, and says, "Because Division is the reason your father is gone."

Being in Division has taught Oliver a lot about reading people. The moment he mentions her father is the moment he hooks her. Jacob Smoak is his ace in the hole.

Cautiously, Felicity reaches for the file. She opens it. Five seconds later, Felicity's face goes ashen, and Oliver understands. She's been searching for answers for the past fifteen years. Coming this close has to feel like heaven and hell at the same time.

Her eyes stay on the file as she asks, "Division killed my father?" It's more of a statement than a question at this point. The file Oliver stole was incredibly detailed.

Reaching over the table, Oliver offers her his hand. "Does this mean you're in?"

She doesn't hesitate. "I'm in."


	2. Confiding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since there is apparently some confusion (on ff.net at least) about the pairings for this fic, let me reassure you all once more that at the moment, the intended main pairing is Oliver/Felicity, followed by some Felicity/Tommy friendship and eventually some Felicity/Barry friendship.

Taking Division apart from the inside is Felicity's idea. She's sitting on the floor in the center of the foundry in front of a huge whiteboard covered with photos and lines and notations. The area around her is covered with files and papers spread out haphazardly. She knows it looks like chaos to Oliver, but it makes perfect sense to her.

For the past week she's been down here, sleeping in the twin bed in the area Oliver's cornered off for her with four shower curtains hanging from metal rods. It's not the best kind of privacy, but it's an obvious effort on his part, so she takes it. Both of them need to be extra carful to stay off of Division's radar until they're ready to strike. Any preemptive action from either of them could end this entire operation before it even gets started.

At the other end of the foundry, Oliver is exercising. Shirtless. This happens a lot, and having her back to Oliver's shirtless, sweaty, well-defined form is the only reason Felicity isn't currently distracted by it. She can hear the clang of the Salmon Ladder as he climbs higher and higher, and she wills herself not to turn around. It's impressive, like everything else about Oliver Queen.

When she hears the soft sound of him dropping to the floor, she says, "I have an idea."

Oliver doesn't speak until he's right in front of her, towel draped around his shoulders. His abs glisten with sweat, and Felicity forces her eyes not to linger on them. "What is it?" he asks.

"You're not going to like it."

"What _is_ it?" Oliver repeats.

"You said Division wanted to recruit me, right?"

Oliver tilts his head to the side. She can see the wheels spinning. "Right..."

"So." Felicity takes a deep breath. Once the words are out of her mouth there is no taking them back. "What if we let them?"

"No," Oliver says without a moment of hesitation. "Out of the question."

Felicity stands to her feet. She's much shorter than Oliver, but that doesn't mean she wants to have this discussion while she's craning her neck to look up at him. "Why? Because you don't think I can do it?"

"No, Felicity. Because..."

"You tell me we need information that's on these black boxes - information Malcolm has hidden and protected away from prying eyes - but you don't know where the boxes are or how to find them or even really _what_ they are. Figuring that out requires information that is inside Division, and if you're as good as you say, there's no way I'm even going to get anywhere close to it from the outside hacking in. On the inside, I have a chance at getting what we need."

"On the inside, you have a chance of getting yourself _killed_ ," Oliver amends. "I won't let that happen."

"It's my life; that makes it my call, not yours."

"It's my mission."

She steps closer to him, inside his personal space, looking up at him, daring him to back down. She speaks slowly and forcefully. "It's mine too. If you can't recognize that I don't know how I ever thought we were partners."

She starts to brush past him, but he grabs her arm.

It's the first time he's touched her since their handshake in the coffee shop, and it sets off a fire in her bones. Glancing down at his hand on her arm, then back up at him, Felicity says, "Let me go."

"You _are_ my partner," Oliver's voice is low and husky. "And it's because you're my partner that I can't let you do this. Partners are there to drag you back from the edge, Felicity. I'm telling you, you have no idea - no _concept_ \- of just how dangerous what you're suggesting is. I did not pull you into this fight to watch you throw away your life on a shot in the dark."

She yanks her arm out of his grip. "And I didn't join this fight to sit on the sidelines and twiddle my thumbs. You need to know how to destroy Division? I'm telling you. This is what it's going to take."

And with that, she grabs her laptop and marches off to the tiny corner of the lair she can call hers so she can draw up a stealth infiltration strategy Oliver can't refuse.

* * *

 

One of the first things Tommy does - once his training as a Division agent is complete and he has access to the internet again - is look for Laurel's obituary. He doesn't find it. Instead he finds evidence that while 3,503 people died during the earthquake's destruction of the Glades, Laurel wasn't among them.

The relief that she's alive, that she _survived_ , hits him square in the chest, and he mouths a prayer of thanks to whatever deity is out there. This revelation is soon followed by the horrific knowledge that she thinks he's dead. She thinks he's dead. She thinks Oliver's dead. She probably lost friends during that quake. Coworkers.

And his father was the one responsible. His _father_ was the reason Division agents were in place to pull Tommy out. His father is the reason 3,503 people are dead from two separate weapons that decimated a huge part of Starling City all so that he could prove to the Oversight Committee that Division had its place among the intelligence agencies.

"You need to stop thinking about her." Shado sinks into the seat next to him. Her unrivaled skills in stealth ensure that she's made it all the way across the otherwise empty computer lab without making a sound. "No good will come of it."

Tommy closes his eyes as he clears his browser history with a series of clicks. "I can't. She thinks that I'm--"

He cuts himself off. Up until this point in their relationship, Shado has been nothing but trustworthy. She's in charge of agent training. She's thrown him onto his ass more times than he could count, made him slap a bowl of water for hours, and talked him through numerous fights with his personal demons. She's perceptive and precise.

(And pretty, but he knows he's not supposed to notice that.)

"I know what she thinks, and I know how that aches in your soul. Do you think I am happy knowing that my own father believes I am dead? You _must_ understand yourself, Thomas. You _must_ learn patience, learn acceptance of the world around you. The status quo can be changed, but if you are to be the one to change it you _must_ wait until the right time."

Tommy's never been fond of being called Thomas, but he finds that he doesn't mind when Shado's voice is the one saying his full name.

"You and I both know that the _only_ reason my father even considered bringing me in was to bait Oliver."

"You were going to die."

"And he could have dropped me off at a hospital instead of deciding that he hadn't fucked up my life enough and needed to fake my death too."

Shado stays quiet. By this point, Tommy's learned that it's not because she doesn't have anything to say, but more because she has too much to say and she wants to make the right decision.

Still, there's no point in waiting forever. "There's something I've been wondering. You and Oliver, the two of you were close; do you know why he left?"

Leaning forward, Shado rests her elbows on her knees. "I don't know."

Confused, Tommy frowns, but he knows Shado, so he waits for more, sure she won't just leave him with that.

"Malcolm knows why," she says finally. "Or at least, he has his suspicions, but he won't share them with me."

"Oliver didn't tell you why he left?"

She shakes her head. "There was a time, Thomas, when I knew that man well. That time had ended quite a while before he decided to leave."

"It must have been something awful," Tommy says, "if he finally left here after all this time."

"He never wanted to be here," Shado tells him. "He wanted to go home--to you and Thea and Moira and Laurel. He wanted to go back home."

"And my father wouldn't let him."

"Your father believes that once he's saved someone, this place is their home and these people are their family, but Oliver never accepted that. His home was always in Starling, and his family was always the people there. You."

Somehow, that knowledge is soothing. Oliver never wanted to stay here. Oliver was here then for the same reason Tommy is here now. He _aches_ to return to Laurel, to Thea, much in the same way Oliver must have. And yet he understands this need to keep them safe, to keep them away from the destruction Division will surely bring to their lives.

"I suppose," Shado says quietly, startling him out of his reverie, "You're going to need to decide if you will do the same. Do you want to let this place be your home? Or do you want to spend your time here pining over a girl who has grieved you and moved on?"

Tommy doesn't know the answer to that.

* * *

 

It takes Oliver a week to come around to Felicity's idea. It's a week Felicity spends laying out every facet of her plan. She's a conniving planner, completely able to work out possible contingencies and think quickly on her feet. She's not as effective of a liar as she could be, but deception is something Oliver can teach her.

It's also a week during which everything goes completely and utterly wrong. It's a gunshot wound that finally does it. Oliver gets a graze on his shoulder, and Felicity ends up patching him up. As he's sitting there, thinking off all of the things that could have gotten them ahead of Division, he has to acknowledge that having someone on the inside would have helped.

"Alright," Oliver says, "I don't like it, but you're right. It's a good idea, and it could work."

Felicity almost drops the gauze she's wrapping around his arm. "Really?"

He grabs her free hand gently, rubbing the pad of his thumb against the soft skin on the inside of her wrist. "If we do this, Felicity, we're not doing it halfway. You're not going to just up and waltz into the CIA tomorrow so Division can grab you. We're going to do this _right_. We've only got one shot at this. We need to plan."

"And we'll get one," she tells him, staring him directly in the eyes. "We can do this, Oliver."

"I don't like the idea of putting you in unnecessary danger." He's still holding onto her hand, and he really should let go, but he doesn't want to. He should not fall for this woman, but he's always been a selfish bastard like that. Division didn't drill that out of him. Regardless, he reminds himself, he doesn't have to be attracted to her to prioritize her safety.

"Neither do I," Felicity says, "But it's my life to risk. Besides, this is a good idea. It's going to work."

Oliver really hopes so.

* * *

 

"Tell me why do I need to do this again?" Felicity asks, pushing herself up off of the training mat and back onto her feet. Sweat glistens on her skin and plasters strands of hair that has escaped from her ponytail onto the back of her neck. "All Division plans for me to do is sit behind a keyboard and type. This isn't going to help me battle carpal tunnel."

Tommy smiles at her. "Analysts need to be prepared to go into the field; it's part of your basic training."

"It's a waste of time." Taking advantage of the unofficial break, Felicity bends down to grab her water bottle.

"You won't say that when Malcolm sends you out with a TAC team to collect information and Queen gets the drop on you."

She gives him a look. "Is that likely to happen?"

"You never know." He's grinning at her, and that stomps down the anxiety that rises inside her at the thought of going into the field with _Division_ as her back up. Up against Oliver. How does she keep her cover if they try to kill him? How does she protect him without stepping in front of her own bullet?

"Hey," Tommy says, resting a hand on her shoulder. "That's some time away, alright? And I know all the rumors about Queen make him sound utterly terrifying, but every time we've run into them, he's made every effort to avoid killing any of our assets."

"I don't understand," Felicity says, "I thought you told me he wanted to burn this place to the ground.

"That's the story my--Malcolm is telling." Felicity hears the verbal slip. She knows Malcolm is his father, because of Oliver, but from what she's seen, Tommy doesn't want the rest of the agents to know the connection. "I've looked at the mission reports. I don't think Oliver is out to take this organization out from the ground up. I don't think he's ever tried to go after the agents. I think he's out to stop Malcolm, and he wants to keep the casualty count as low as possible."

Considering the two men haven't seen each other in over six years, Tommy's accurate insight into Oliver's motivation is surprising.

And then, like he's said too much, Tommy slips back into instructor mode. "Let's get back to this."

Wincing, Felicity sets her water bottle down and takes her place across from him. He's going over basics that she already knows, but she needs to pretend that she doesn't. She needs them to think she's not as good as she is. She needs to be underestimated. It's crucial to her own survival. If that means letting Tommy plaster her to the floor using moves Oliver's already taught her how to block, then that's what she has to do.

"You're getting better at this," Tommy tells her needlessly. But he doesn't know that it's needless, so she smiles at him and thanks him for saying it. She also tries not to groan out loud when she doesn't stop him from effortlessly throwing her to the ground. Again.

The temptation to show him exactly what she's made of rises in her chest, but she stamps it down and accepts the hand up he offers her.

"Don't you worry, Felicity Smoak," Tommy says. "We'll get you there. It's a promise."

They go back and forth for a few more rounds, and Felicity's almost about to tell Tommy she's had enough and can they please go back to target practice because she's better at it, when something strange happens.

The main training room in Division is positioned right along the hallway that leads to Operations. Glass windows line the walkway so that Malcolm, Tommy and Isabel can check in on the trainees--not that Felicity thinks Isabel particularly cares beyond her infuriating urge to snoop.

Tommy is talking her through fixing her stance (she _knows_ that her legs aren't far enough apart; she's doing it incorrectly by intention) when Felicity glances behind him and sees a woman walking down the hallway toward operations.

"Who's that?" The words are out of her mouth before she has time to think of the consequences.

She watches Tommy's face carefully as he turns around, and what she sees is the face of a man whose world has just stopped and started up again.

"Shado," he says in a quiet whisper.

He's out of the room before Felicity can ask him another question.

* * *

 

"You said they'd train me," Felicity tells Oliver as they face off on the training mats. She tries not to let her eyes wander down to his bare abs. "Why are we doing this?"

"Contingencies," is his answer. "Also, if you want to work your way into Malcolm's favor, being a computer expert who can take care of herself in the field is a great way to do it."

"But I thought you were just sending me in to collect information?"

"Contingencies," Oliver repeats. He steps forward, and she counters the motion just like he taught her. "You never know when a plan is going to go wrong."

Felicity gulps. "How wrong are we talking about here? Like 'Merlyn finds out that I'm working with you and kills me' wrong or 'I accidently get a paper cut sifting through files on his desk' wrong? Oh god, would he really kill me? That seems like overkill--pun so not intended--especially since he could theoretically use me to get to you, and that's not even the point, the point was--"

"Felicity."

"Right." She snaps her mouth shut and shifts her focus back onto her stance, trying to remember exactly how Oliver told her to stand. At the time he was giving her instructions, he was behind her and just as hypnotically shirtless as he is right now. "Sorry. I get chatty when I'm nervous."

"Look," Oliver says "I want to be able to promise you that I'm not going to let anything happen to you, but that would be a lie. The truth is that I won't be in there with you. You're going in completely dark, and the only person you're going to be able to trust in there is _yourself_."

"I trust you," she says.

Oliver winces. "You shouldn't."

They go again, back and forth. Felicity gets used to the feeling of crashing onto the mats every time she slips up, but she's actually glad that he's pushing her. He's right; she'll need this skill set inside Division.

Finally, he strikes out at her; she responds - correctly this time - and they both fall. The breath leaves Felicity's lungs with a _whoosh_ , and when it comes back, Oliver is on top of her. His hips are bracketed by her legs, and the intimacy of the position steals away whatever breath had previously returned to her.

Sliding her arms up between their bodies, Felicity cups his face in her hands. "I trust you, Oliver. _I trust you_."

He bends down, his forehead pressing against hers. She can feel his breath hot against her face. His expression is unreadable. "I can't protect you in there. You understand that, right?"

Before while they were fighting it was easy to ignore his hands on her skin because they were generally accompanied by a quick fall onto the mats a second later. But here, with one arm holding his body up and the other wrapped around her waist, it's impossible to overlook how quickly her body reacts to this man.

"You're protecting me right now, by helping me protect myself."

"Felicity," he draws out the syllables of her name like they're a melody. For a moment, she thinks he's going to kiss her, and she wants it more than she wants her next breath.

Oliver Queen is dangerous and overpowering and even knowing how much she should not be feeling anything for him, she finds herself completely unable to resist him.

And then he's pushing himself off of her and muttering something about how this is enough sparring for now.

As he walks away, she watches the way he rubs his thumb against the pads of his fingers. She lets herself be comforted by the knowledge that he was far from unaffected by the moment they just shared as he'd like her to think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if the non-linear storytelling in this fic is confusing at all. It's not a format I'm used to writing, but I am really trying to keep the timeline of this fic as clear as possible.


	3. Learning

Two months after Tommy has been made a full fledged Division agent, Shado catches him on his way to a meeting with his father.

"We need to talk," she says, grabbing his arm and tugging him back in the direction from which he'd come. "Before you go see your-Malcolm-before you go see Malcolm." Even though she doesn't like it - "You need to own up to your own past, Thomas. No matter how it hurts you." - she's gotten better at keeping his parentage a secret from everybody else at Division, but sometimes she slips up.

"What's going on?" he asks, following her as she swipes her key card across the door lock for one of this level's armories.

Shado waits until they're both inside the room and the door is closed behind them. "I need you to listen to me  _very_  carefully. Do you trust me?"

He wants to have the right to feel hurt that she even has to ask, but he's been in this world long enough to know better. "You know that I do."

"Your father is planning on putting you in charge of the recruits' training for the time being."

That's  _her_  job. If he's being put in charge, then that means... "Why? Where are you going to be?"

"Malcolm wants to make some noise in Starling City, see if he can lure Oliver out into the open."

Tommy's heart stops. "He's going after Thea? Moira?" Surely his father wouldn't. He  _couldn't_. They have nothing to do with this.

"I'm not sure yet," Shado says, "Possibly both of them. It's not like he hasn't threatened their lives before. How do you think he forced Oliver to stay seven years ago?"

"He used them against him." Admittedly, Tommy thinks that makes a lot of sense. The Oliver he knew back then would have moved heaven and earth to get home...unless it was going to put other people in the crossfire.

"Them...and you and Laurel and anyone and everyone else Oliver has ever loved. It's what Merlyn  _does_."

Tommy remembers his father snidely mentioning how unfortunate it would be if Laurel met with an untimely accident. He remembers feeling helpless and out of control until he'd convinced himself that it was just a threat. Malcolm wouldn't do anything to Laurel so long as Tommy toed the line. "And you're just going to help him threaten them again?"

Hurt flashes across Shado's face. "I'm doing this, Thomas, because another agent isn't going to care about the collateral damage. Another agent won't try to keep Moira and Thea  _safe_  while they're trying to bring Oliver in, and they won't care about keeping Oliver safe when Merlyn is completely fine with them taking him out. I'm going because I'm one of the only people who is actually going to try to keep everyone alive."

Everything inside Tommy just deflates. All the anger at his father, all his anger at Oliver, all his confusion surrounding what their relationship was and what it wasn't is completely inaccessible to him. All that matters is that his best friend was still his best friend when he joined Division and he stayed away to protect them, to protect  _him_.

The problem is that Oliver's not just going to sit idly by while his family is in danger. He's going to show up in Starling. He's going to try to protect them.

And Tommy's father is going to use that against him.

"Be careful," Tommy says. He knows Oliver wouldn't kill her, just like he knows she wouldn't kill him. There are so many other factors in play, however, that he feels the need to say it. He doesn't know how to tell her he wouldn't know what to do if anything happened to her. He thinks he would go crazy here without her, with no one around who truly had his back.

"I will," she says. "Watch your back in here without me. Your father has eyes and ears everywhere. Don't trust anyone."

He wants to hug her, but he's not sure if she would be receptive to it, so he refrains. Still, there's something about the way she looks at him, like she's memorizing everything about him, just in case this is the mission that separates them forever.

Which it won't be. Tommy hopes.

One at a time, they slip back into the hallway; Tommy goes first and heads straight to Operations.

As soon as he steps inside, he feels sick. Thea and Moira's faces are displayed on the monitors, along with a host of information about them. If Division wants them dead, they'll be gone within 24 hours.

He hears the door behind him open. Shado moves to stand beside him. "Stay calm," she says. "I've got this."

"Tommy," Malcolm yells from across the room. "We have a new recruit. She's just waking up. As the new head of recruit training, your face need to be the first face she sees. Let's go."

It's exactly how Malcolm would announce a position change. No one in the room even seems nonplussed by it.

"Go," Shado says softly. "We'll talk more when I get back."

 _If you get back_ , he thinks, but he can't bear to say it out loud. She takes his hand and gives it a firm squeeze, then she's walking away and he's watching her go.

"Here," Malcolm says, passing him a tablet. "This is the file on your girl."

Tommy only has a few seconds to skim it as he follows his father out of Operations and down the hall to the recruits' quarters.

"Felicity Smoak," he says under his breath. "Welcome to the hellhole they call Division."

* * *

"To get to Malcolm's black boxes, you need to get to him," Oliver says, passing Felicity his phone. They've been going over the function and personalities of every high level Division agent. Thus far, she's learned about the head of Division, Malcolm Merlyn, and his second-in-command, a fearsome woman by the name if Isabel Rochev.

"Who is he?" Felicity asks, staring at the photo on the screen with no small amount of curiosity.

"This is Barry Allen," Oliver says. "He's Malcolm's engineer. He handles the encryption of his black boxes, setup and monitoring of comm units for teams, hacking, and upkeep of ever piece of computer technology inside Division. If you use a keyboard, you report to him. Malcolm will put the two of you together to try to find me, I have no doubt."

"How do I handle that?"

"Barry? Smile, flirt. He's a softie, but you need to impress him first. Once you've done that, he'll fall at your feet."

"No," Felicity hesitates, "I meant, how do I handle the fact that my job will be to find you?"

"I don't understand."

She sighs. "If they tell me to find you, Oliver, that's exactly what I'll have to do. I've been studying how to find people for the better part of the past ten years."

"I know how to stay off of Division's radar, Felicity. I've done it before; you don't have to worry."

"You forget to eat if I don't call the Chinese place three blocks away and order kung pao chicken with egg rolls; of course I'm gonna worry."

"That's different."

She doesn't think so. "I'm gonna have to teach you how to hide. You teach me how to protect myself on the inside; I'll teach you how to protect yourself outside."

The smile he gives her is soft and genuine. His hand curves gently over her shoulder. "Thank you."

"I can try to cover your tracks," she says, intentionally breaking the moment. Oliver gives her a look. " _Carefully_ , of course."

"Don't overdo it. Allen is clever. If you don't cover your tracks just right, he  _will_  catch you."

"Noted." Felicity hands him back his phone. "I'll be careful."

Now," he says, in what is a clear change of subject, "How is that shell program coming?"

"Done." Felicity raises a fist in the air victoriously. "As of an hour ago."

"Good." Turning away, Oliver starts rifling through one of the drawers of one of the metal cabinets, pulling out various shiny, pointed things. "Let's get this over with."

Felicity winces. She has not been looking forward to this part.

Trying not to look at the instruments Oliver is sterilizing, Felicity unbuttons her blouse slowly, letting it slip off of her shoulder and down her arm. She wraps the rest of the garment around her waist.

"I'm going to give you a local anesthetic," Oliver says, "but it's not going to do much. This is going to hurt, Felicity."

"I know. I said I was willing to do whatever it takes. I am."

Felicity leans forward onto the table, making sure she's comfortable and well supported. "Besides, we have to do this now. It needs to heal before Division takes me or they'll be suspicious."

The first cut into her skin  _hurts_ , but the second is more bearable. She closes her eyes and focuses on the firmness of the table beneath her upper body. He's making the incision in her upper arm, in a place that's accessible so she can cut out the encased microchip once she's inside Division. The chip contains the shell program she needs to be able to communicate with him on the inside without detection.

"I hate needles," she says, because talking is a distraction she needs right now. If he tells her to stop, she will. No sense distracting the guy with the sharp pointy objects. "I'm not even sure when that started. I know that I hated getting shots when I was a kid, even had nightmares about it. There must have been some bad experience in my youth, I just can't remember it. All I know is that I don't like needles. I'm not crazy about blood, either, but it doesn't make me woozy, just a little uncomfortable, which I think is understandable. Shouldn't blood make everyone uncomfortable?"

He hasn't told her to stop yet, so she keeps going. "This is gonna be my first scar. Probably. The ones in my mouth don't really count-impacted wisdom teeth, stitches-cause you can't really see them."

The pain goes from a dull throb to a sharp, piercing pain, and she can't help the quick intake of breath that accompanies the sensation.

"You okay?" Oliver asks.

"Yes. Keep going. I want this over with."

"Soon, I promise," he says, and she can  _hear_  the smile in his voice, the amusement. "Keep talking to me, Felicity."

So she does. Her brain is a little too frazzled and pain-addled for her to really remember everything she says, but she does know that she doesn't stop talking until after Oliver finishes the last stitch and is pulling the latex gloves off of his hands.

"All done."

She breathes a huge sigh of relief. "Now I just have to figure out how to take it out."

* * *

Felicity tries to ignore the blood dripping down her arm as she presses a blade against a tiny white scar that has just recently healed. She needs to be quick, but she also needs to be  _careful_.

She had to lift the pocketknife off of one of the guards, and she's got to drop it back on the same one before he notices it's missing. There's just no other way. Division doesn't let them near anything else sharp enough to cut through her skin, and she needs this chip out of her arm  _now_ , because she needs to be able to communicate with Oliver sooner rather than later.

It's the thought of Oliver that helps her through the agonizing process of pulling the chip out of her arm. Trying not to cry, she dabs at the blood with a tissue, slaps a bandage over the cut, and tugs her sleeve back into place so she can hide the evidence.

She's just burying the bloody tissues at the bottom of her trash can when someone knocks on the door to her room.

"Smoak!" Tommy yells, "Let's go. Time's wasting."

Sliding the chip in her pocket and the stolen knife under her mattress, Felicity climbs off of the twin bed and yanks open the door. "What's up?"

"I want to introduce you to someone, c'mon." Tommy starts walking and motions for her to follow. Felicity has to jog for a few seconds to catch up with his longer stride and quicker pace.

"Who?" she asks.

"You'll see."

They round a corner, take a quick elevator ride (after Tommy swipes his key card; Felicity's not allowed off of the recruit's level and has been told numerous times that  _any_ unauthorized access to other floors could result in her cancelation), and descend a short set of stairs into a room completely  _filled_  with computer equipment. Several workstations, a display of six monitors on the far wall, and a workbench covered with wires and tools make the place look like heaven. Off in the corner of the room is a twin bed, almost hidden by all the stuff that surrounds it.

A young man spins around in his desk chair as Tommy and Felicity reach the last step.

"Tommy," he says, jumping to his feet and running towards them, just barely dodging a stack of books as he does so. "I fixed the issues with the comms, but I had to recalibrate the entire system."

From there, he launches into a detailed explanation that Felicity can tell Tommy doesn't understand a word of. She, however, follows him easily. Computers are her bread and butter.

"Felicity Smoak," Tommy says, when the young man pauses to take a breath, "Meet Barry Allen. You'll be working primarily with him."

"Hi," Felicity says, "Nice to meet you."

He takes her hand and gives her a smile that lights up his eyes. "The infamous Felicity Smoak, it  _is_ a pleasure."

Oliver's right; Barry's cute. And he's already looking at her with definite interest. Impress him, that's what Oliver said to do. Impress him, and he'll fall at your feet.

Felicity scans his setup. One or two thoughtful comments later, she barely notices when Tommy leaves the room because she's so engrossed in conversation with Barry. And is he ever eager to impress her. It's a cinch to plug in the memory card, and the beauty of the program she's designed is that it's virtually undetectable and loads itself onto the system so she doesn't have to leave the incriminating hardware there. Once sufficient time has passed, Felicity just casually slips the card back into her pocket. She'll destroy it at the first available opportunity.

"We do need to get you up to speed on a few Division-specific programs," Barry is saying, "but I'd love to show you some of the actual hardware. This system is a thing of beauty."

"I'm sure that's because you designed it," Felicity says. Talking to Barry is effortless. She can look at him and see the excitement and joy in his eyes at the thought of  _creating_ things. He actually seems  _happy_  here.

Division didn't kill his father, she reminds herself. And like Oliver told her once, everyone has their own reasons for joining up.

"So," Barry says, offering her a red vine, "What's your story?"

Taking the candy, Felicity draws on the half-true cover she'd constructed with Oliver. "Computers always made more sense to me than people. My dad was an insurance salesman." Hardly, he worked for the CIA, but sales was his cover when Felicity was little, so the lie doesn't catch on her tongue. "But he knew all about computers. We were building one together when he left."

"I'm sorry," Barry says. "My dad killed my mom when I was around the same age. So, I know what it's like...to live with a parent betraying you in a fundamental way like that."

She doesn't want to talk about her father, but she  _does_  want to use this similarity to find out more about him, the things Oliver couldn't or wouldn't tell her. Felicity asks, "How did you end up here?"

"I was put in the foster system. Actually, when I was around fifteen I had a family who would have adopted me if I hadn't hacked into the police systems looking for information about my mother's murder. I cut a deal, but it was contingent on spending a few months in JV. Malcolm approached me when I got out." He smiles. "Best decision of my life. This is the first place I've ever felt like I belonged."

Felicity doesn't have a response to that. Her brain can't even begin to  _contemplate_  it. To her, Division is constant danger. If they find out she's working with Oliver, she's dead. If she can't get Oliver the information he needs without Division finding out her,  _he's_  dead.

Barry seems to catch on to her anxiety, but he completely misinterprets it. "Give it some time, Felicity. Pretty soon this place will seem like home to you too."

It's the least reassuring thing he could possibly have said, but he has no way of knowing that.

Felicity smiles and takes another red vine.

* * *

After two days of carefully observing the computer lab, Felicity concludes that it's quietest during lunchtime. The shell program she installed can be accessed from any terminal, so she doesn't have to be anywhere near Barry or his system. She had to wait a few days after planting the program, just to be careful. Even with that caution, it's still best to not have to worry about anyone else's eyes peeking over her shoulder.

But now she can talk to Oliver. Even if it's just through what basically amounts to a well-hidden, super-encrypted instant messenger.

Felicity takes a deep breath. What does she even say? She wants to write him a novel, tell him all the things that have happened. She wants to tell him how she doesn't like people's loyalty to Division, but she understands it so much better now; she wants him to promise her that they'll keep the collateral damage to a minimum. She wants to talk about how Tommy is a great training agent. He's supportive, kind, and encouraging; he makes her laugh when she never thought she'd be able to so much as smile while she was inside Division's walls. She wants him to know she understands why Tommy Merlyn was Oliver Queen's best friend.

And then there's Barry, whose eyes light up when she enters the room, who is so relieved to have someone else to talk tech with who actually understands, and who shares his contraband candy with her.

Finally, she wishes she could speak with him about Malcolm Merlyn. She has yet to actually be in the man's presence as anything other than a face in the crowd, but everything about him gives her the creeps. It's inconceivable to her how this ruthless, cunning man is the father of one of the gentlest souls she's ever met.

"Tommy doesn't have the stomach for Division," Oliver told her once. "And it'll eat him alive if I-if  _we_  don't stop it."

"You didn't have the stomach either," she'd replied, "You left."

"We're not the same, Felicity. He's a good man."

She'd stepped forward then, placing a hand on his arm. She remembers how her voice had trembled with conviction. "So are you."

"No," Oliver had said with a shake of his head. "I  _was_. Now I'm just a survivor."

And the way he'd completely shut any attempts at conversation down after that had been the end it.

Being here, with these people - watching how Merlyn manipulates everything around him, knowing how he broke Oliver into fragments and let him heal  _wrong_  - it makes her understand him so much better. He's not what she thought in the beginning at all.

And she knows, knows way down in her bones, that she's not going to be the same either. Sure, she's playing a game. She isn't the Felicity they see, and they can't manipulate and control her the way they did him. It's not going to matter. Division alters everything it touches, and she's not going to be the exception.

Felicity puts her hands to the keyboard and types.

**I'M IN. WAITING FOR INSTRUCTIONS.**

She waits. A few seconds later the reply comes through.

**GOOD. WILL BE IN TOUCH. KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN. STAY SAFE. 346.**

During one of their late nights, they'd developed their own shorthand, just in the unlikely event someone from Division got their hands on transcripts of these conversations. Three-Four-Six means:  _Got your six._

Felicity smiles and replies:  **346** ** _._**


	4. Testing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took a bit longer than expected because it just kept getting longer and longer. Finally I had to split it into two separate chapters. Hopefully this means that the next part will be finished and updated sooner.

It's early in the morning when Felicity slips into the computer lab. All the other recruits are in the dining hall having breakfast, but Felicity's found that if she skips out early, she can get a few minutes in the computer lab alone to give Oliver a rundown of everything she's learned so far.

After opening the shell program, Felicity types in a message to Oliver: **SHADO CAME BACK YESTERDAY _._**

Oliver's reply takes a second before it comes through. **HOW DO YOU KNOW?**

**SAW HER WHILE TRAINING WITH TOMMY. HE RAN OUT OF THE ROOM AFTER HER.**

**WAIT. WHY IS TOMMY TRAINING YOU?**

She types back, **KEEP GETTING PULLED OUT OF CLASSES TO WORK WITH BARRY. I WAS FALLING BEHIND. TOMMY'S HELPING ME KEEP UP. NOT THAT I ACTUALLY NEED IT, BUT I FIGURED GETTING CLOSER TO HIM COULDN'T HURT.**

There's a long wait before Oliver replies. **GOOD. SMART MOVE. IS TOMMY STILL TRAINING THE REGULAR RECRUITS? OR HAS SHADO TAKEN OVER FROM HIM.**

 **THEY'RE WORKING ON IT TOGETHER NOW,** Felicity writes.

 **ANYTHING ELSE TO REPORT?** Oliver asks.

Felicity takes a deep breath, and types: **I HAVE A TEST TODAY. INTERROGATING A DIVISION PRISONER.**

It's kind of an unconventional test for someone who is probably just going to end up working with computers, but apparently Malcolm and Isabel have insisted on it. They want her completely cleared for field work.

Oliver's responds: **BE CAREFUL. LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU FIND OUT.**

**I WILL. 34--**

"Yo! Blondie!"

Felicity is startled so badly she almost falls off of the chair she's sitting on. "What?" she asks, trying to regain her composure and simultaneously close the shell program so her fellow recruit doesn't see it. For just a second, she feels bad she won't be able to tell Oliver goodbye. She hopes he doesn't worry.

The kid's got both hands stuffed in the front pocket of his red hoodie. "Allen's looking for you," he says, gesturing for her to follow him with a nod of his head. "C'mon."

"Don't call me blondie," Felicity says as she follows him out of the room.

The kid shrugs. "Sorry. Never got your name."

"I'm Felicity."

"Roy," he says in reply. "I've seen you around. You work with flashdrive most of the time, right?"

"Flashdrive?"

Roy grins. "He's got that little one shaped like a blue police box. When he teaches us Hacking For Dummies, he's always fiddling with it. Apparently his hacker handle used to be 'The Flash' or something ridiculous like that."

"It still is," Felicity says. "And he is every bit as good as he says. Maybe even better."

"You like working with him then?" Roy asks.

"Yeah," she replies with a smile, because she _does_. Barry is the easiest person to be around. He's sweet and thoughtful and brilliant. He's nice to her even when she kicks his butt at _Halo_. Which she does. Often.

"To each their own, I guess." They stop at the door to Barry's workroom. Roy stuffs his hands back into the pockets of his hoodie. "I guess I'll be seeing you around, Blondie."

She gives him a look, and opens her mouth to object to the moniker, but is interrupted by the door in front of them flying open.

"Felicity!" Barry exclaims. "There you are. You get to learn how to set up a lie detector today."

It's something that Felicity actually _doesn't_ know how to do - at least, she's not sure of the particulars of how _Division's_ lie detectors work. For the first time, excitement fills her at the idea of getting to learn something _new_ and useful.

She grins widely at Barry as he grabs her hand and starts to pull her down the hallway. His legs are so long and he moves so fast that she almost has to run to keep up with him.

* * *

 

"I don't like this," Tommy tells Shado.

"I don't like it _either_ ," she replies. "This is not Felicity's area of expertise and to put her through this is imbecilic, but it's happening with Malcolm's go-ahead, so for now we keep quiet and you get ready to pull her out if anything happens."

"You couldn't stop him?" Tommy says quietly, well aware that they're not alone.

"I just got back," she murmurs. "There was nothing I could do."

They're standing side-by-side in Operations, watching the video feed displayed on screens mounted on the wall.

"The man you're about to talk to is a suspected terrorist," an on-screen Isabel is telling Felicity. "We want you to find out what he knows about where the other members in his cell are hiding and what their plans are. You are to use any interrogation technique you think necessary, and if he needs further persuasion, you can use this." She hands Felicity a small remote. "Push this button and it'll give him an electric shock."

Tommy watches Felicity's eyes go wide. With fear or with horror, he's not sure which. Her hands are trembling as she takes it. Isabel gestures to the door that leads to the interrogation room. "Give it your best shot," Isabel says shortly.

"She's not trained for this," Tommy grumbles. "She's going to crash and burn, and Isabel is going to _delight_ in it."

Shado touches his arm with the tips of her fingers. Her voice stays ever-soft, ever-gentle. "I don't know why Malcolm makes the decisions that he does, but I will make this right."

Isabel returns to Operations a moment later, and Shado pulls her hand away from his arm.

Forcing his focus to return to Felicity's image on the screens, Tommy tries to ignore the way his whole arm still feels like it's tingling from her touch. It's not difficult to tell that Felicity is nervous. Tommy watches the way she carries herself, how she holds her arms protectively around her body, the way the hand holding the remote is trembling slightly.

The good news is that her voice is unwavering as she repeats the questions Isabel feeds her. Joseph is not going to break because Felicity Smoak questions him firmly, but her inability to be intimidated by him is important.

Over the earpiece, Isabel coaches her on non-violent intimidation tactics. Felicity threatens, coerces, and offers him his freedoms if he'll just tell her where the rest of the members of his cell are hiding.

She holds off on using the electric shock until Isabel flat out _orders_ her to, and there are tears in her eyes by the time she actually lets her thumb hover over the button. "Please don't make me," she whispers, and Tommy's three seconds away from insisting _again_ that Isabel shut this whole thing down, when Shado grabs his arm again, tightly. Her nails dig into his skin, and he exhales slowly. Just a little longer. It'll be over soon.

Felicity presses the button, and Joseph _screams_.

"Tommy..." Barry says, uneasiness in his voice. He's handled tech for plenty of Division interrogations, but never one such a close friend has had to lead, and Tommy immediately understands his disquiet. He doesn't like watching Division turn Felicity's innate compassion against her.

And then Joseph's restraints snap. He's out of his chair and advancing on Felicity before she even has a chance to react.

Felicity screams as Joseph slams her body against the wall, his hands locked around her throat, and Tommy loses whatever slip of control he previously possessed. He's out of Operations, down the hall, and through the interrogation room door just in time to yank Joseph off of Felicity and throw him across the room.

The two security agents who were right on his heels go after Joseph. Tommy waits until they've secured him, then kneels down to check on Felicity, who has slid down the wall into a sitting position on the floor. Her hands are rubbing her throat. Tommy knows it's going to bruise.

"You okay?" he asks, even though he knows the answer is no.

She nods. Because Felicity Smoak is nothing if not surprisingly brave, and Tommy admires her for that.

There's a the squeak of a certain person's converse shoes against the tile of Division's floor, and Tommy backs away from Felicity as Barry races into the room.

"Are you okay?" he says, panting. She takes his hand and lets him help her up into an easy embrace.

Tommy watches them hug, more than a little envious of their easy connection. Barry and Felicity took to each other instantly. There's no question they're going to have each other's back as they navigate this hellhole. It's really good for Barry. Tommy knows he was pretty much alone before Felicity got here. Not that Tommy isn't friends with the guy, but there's only so much technological babble he can stomach before his brain self destructs.

But Felicity understands him _and_ likes him, and he understands and likes her right back. And as much as Tommy wishes he could have that for himself - with a woman he can't _ever_ have - Tommy's still grateful they have each other.

"C'mon," he hears Barry tell Felicity as the two of them leave the room together. "Let's go play some Xbox."

Shado finds him in the hallway a few minutes later. "That was foolish," she says, "Running in there like that. Isabel is going to tell Malcolm that you're emotionally compromised, and it _will_ come back to haunt you."

"I'm fine with taking that chance," Tommy says, pushing past her to keep moving towards Operations.

He's only taken a few steps when he hears her quietly say, " _I'm_ not."

* * *

 

"Are you sure you're up for this?" Tommy asks Felicity for the tenth time.

"I'm sure I don't want _Isabel_ thinking I'm not up for this," Felicity answers. "Besides, it's been a whole day. Medical cleared me in less than fifteen minutes. I'm sure I'll be fine."

She's not actually sure she'll be fine. She's just not comfortable admitting that to Tommy. She wishes she had the opportunity to tell Oliver about this little field trip, but she didn't get her usual time in the computer lab this morning. Instead, Barry caught her as she was coming out of her room, and he sat her down in a workstation inside Operations to make sure she remembered how to run Division's mobile communications system.

The rest of the recruits are going on a capture the flag tactical training mission, but Felicity is being tested on her ability to help her fellow agents in the field when Barry's not there. From what both Tommy and Barry have told her, this requires her to keep a cool head while under pressure as she deals with situations that arise while in the field. She'll be running the comms for the recruits while simultaneously hacking into their target's network to access their internal security network, all while avoiding detection and using the system to keep her team safe.

It's exactly the kind of work she'll be doing once Division has cleared her for fieldwork. Hopefully, that won't be for a while, especially given just how many butterflies are in her stomach.

Tommy gently touches her shoulder, "Good luck, Smoak."

She's too nervous to do anything other than nod quickly and climb into the Division bus.

The only empty seat is next to a black-haired girl Shado keeps calling Cindy even though she's adamant that her name is 'Sin'. ("With an 'S'," she's been firmly insisting.)

Felicity slips into the seat beside her and give her a careful smile. Sin frowns in response.

"Hi," Felicity says.

"Blondie," Sin replies, crossing her arms and turning to face the blacked-out window.

"Don't worry about her," Roy says from the row behind them, leaning forward to rest his arms along the back of their seat. "She warms up to people eventually."

Felicity raises an eyebrow in disbelief.

"Well," he says, reconsidering, "maybe it's just that you get used to her."

Sin turns to glare at him. "Cut it out, Abercrombie."

As the bus starts to move, Roy strikes up an easy conversation with Felicity. He's apparently having a lot of trouble understanding the basic computer techniques Barry has been teaching them in the one recruit class Felicity _isn't_ required to attend. She does, on occasion, go in order to assist Barry, but only when Tommy is otherwise occupied and unable to help her keep up with the physical aspects of her training.

Roy is wondering if maybe she'd be willing to help him grasp some basic computer skills in exchange for him giving her some pointers on the range. Apparently, Roy's an excellent marksman. He _almost_ broke Oliver Queen's long distance shooting record last week.

For a while, Sin is quiet beside Felicity. Before long though, she starts contributing to the conversation - a sentence here and a sentence there. She mostly seems to want to scoff at Roy's perception of his abilities.

Roy turns out to have been right; it does take Sin a little while to warm up to people. She also is having difficulty with the computer classes they're required to take, and while she doesn't outright _ask_ for help, Felicity notices that when she begins including Sin in her statements about when they can get together in the computer lab to work on it, the recruit starts smiling just a _little_.

"You and I should get together to work on some hand-to-hand," Sin tells Felicity.

Felicity _really_ wishes that she didn't have to tone down her abilities in order to throw Division off guard, because she's really getting tired of falling onto the training mats. Regardless, she knows that Oliver would encourage her to work on her combat skills as much as possible. He'd also encourage her to become friends with Roy and Sin, but also warn her not to get too close. She may, for the sake of her mission, have to betray them later. The thought is an unpleasant one, but the more rational part of Felicity knows she needs to prepare herself to do it. Besides, what if betraying them ends up saving Oliver's life or ends up stopping Division? How can she not?

She is just about to tell Sin that hand-to-hand combat help would be great, when the bus abruptly screeches to a halt.

And everything suddenly feels very, very wrong.

"Hey," Felicity says, rising from her seat. "Why are we stopping?"

The words are barely out of her mouth before the front windshield shatters and a silver canister flies through the newly created opening. It clatters to the floor as smoke oozes out of it.

Ducking down, Felicity covers her mouth with the sleeve of her jacket and turns her face away. She can hear people boarding the bus, and as she peeks up at the intruders, she sees black tactical gear, gas masks, and AR-15s.

"Stay calm," Roy whispers. "Division will come for us."

That's not exactly reassuring. Felicity doesn't know who the hell is doing this or what they want with a bus full of Division recruits, but she does know that she doesn't trust Division to save her, and Oliver doesn't have any way of knowing she's in trouble.

Division could hang her out to dry; it could write all of them off as an unfortunate loss. All they can do is try to save themselves. It's a terrifying thought.

That's why the moment one of the attackers gets close enough to Felicity, she strikes him, slamming the heel of her hand up into his jaw. There's a crack, her hand is covered in blood, and then something hard - the butt of her assailant's AR - slams into the side of Felicity's head. Pain shoots through her skull as everything goes dark.

* * *

 

Oliver's halfway down the foundry steps when he sees Felicity sitting on the edge of her bed, staring down at her hands in her lap. The only signal she might be willing to talk with him is the fact that she hasn't drawn the curtains closed. Instead, they're thrown wide open, making her area part of the main space of the room.

Cautiously, Oliver approaches. They've been sharing the same living quarters for the better part of a year now, and it's become just as much her space as it has his. He knows the rules about touching her computers and not putting the toilet seat down, and he still follows the unspoken rule of never entering the place she sleeps, even if it is only separated from the place he sleeps by three purple shower curtains.

"Felicity?" he asks quietly, and the nod she gives him grants the permission he needs. Sitting down on the bed beside her, he resists the urge to take her hand.

They sit like that for a few minutes, side by side. Oliver doesn't know what to say, isn't sure how to narrow the chasm that has suddenly formed between them.

"So," Felicity says quietly, breaking the silence. "It's tomorrow then."

"If you want to back out," Oliver says, "You just say the word and we find another way."

Shaking her head, she says softly, "This is the best way."

"Hey," he says, unable to stop himself from placing a crooked finger under her chin and tilting her head up so he can look at her. "That does not make it the only one."

"We've planned for this. I know all the contingencies. We're not throwing away seven months of work just because I'm a little nervous."

"Say the word, Felicity," he insists, because like _hell_ is she dying for this. Like hell is he forcing her in there. She's been determined to do it up until now so he's been determined to keep her safe while she does, but he thinks he's just as comfortable with getting Malcolm another way. No matter how much longer it takes.

For a long time, she's quiet beside him. Then she says, "You know I have to do this, Oliver."

"I know," he says, trying not to feel the weight on his shoulders getting heavier because for a second he believed she was actually going to back out. "I just don't want anything to happen to you."

It's as close to _I care about you_ as he's willing to get.

This thing between them - their relationship - it can't be what he knows they both want. Love gets people killed. Love is weakness. What they're doing is already too dangerous without adding such a volatile emotion into the mix.

(He could love her though. It wouldn't even be difficult. And that knowledge scares the _hell_ out of him.)

She's walking right into the danger, lying to keep the both of them safe, using Division's own tricks against it. But if they ever figure out that she is someone Oliver would die to protect, they could shove Oliver to his knees, bend him and break him all for _her..._

If they knew how he feels about her, if they ever get an inkling of the things he would do to keep her safe and unharmed?

Then they've lost. And they've both sacrificed too much to let that happen.

That knowledge doesn't stop Oliver from thinking about it though. Every time he's with her, he _wants_. He wants her so much closer than she is right now: the edge of her shoulder and the side of her leg just barely brushing his are not enough.

She's the one who grabs his hand in hers, pulling it closer so the back rests against the exposed skin of her thigh.

He turns his head to study her: memorizing her profile, the sadness in her eyes, the soft curve of her lips, the pink shade of lipstick she loves, the way she always smells sweet and feminine.

His eyes lower to her right shoulder. The tiny strap of her tank top has slid down her arm, so Oliver gently fixes it with his free hand. If he also bends down to press a kiss to the edge of her shoulder after he's done that, well, he just can't help it.

He hears her sharp intake of breath right before she whispers his name. "Oliver, what are you doing?"

 _Nothing_. He wants to say. _This is nothing._

It _should_ be nothing. Except she's staring at him intently, pink lower lip pinched between her teeth. And Oliver wants everything he's not supposed to have.

And he knows, _knows_ deep down inside, that she wants the same thing. They've been partners for months now. He's not oblivious, though he pretends to be, and whether that's for his sake or hers he's not even sure anymore.

Her grip on his hand tightens, and she sways closer to him, so close and so far. So simple and so complicated. Everything he wants and everything he shouldn't have.

"Felicity," he whispers, and he stops because he just _can't_.

"Tell me," she says, voice _breaking,_ and -- _shit_ \-- that's his fault, isn't it? "You always start to say it, but then you stop yourself. Tell me just once. Just once, Oliver."

In a swift, quick movement, Oliver cups her face with his hands and pulls her close, pressing his forehead against hers. They're so close he can feel the waves of her breath on his mouth.

There are words. There are so many words bottled up inside him, words he's been trying to say since they met, since he first saw her and she stole his breath away.

There are too many words, and he can't find them, much less string them together into any kind of coherent sentence. But Felicity's _right here_ , eyes closed, hands on his upper arms, breath coming out of her mouth in short pants, trembling with anticipation under his touch, and the very thought of not closing the distance between them with a kiss is _agony._

He shouldn't do it. Some part of his brain knows this. A good man would not act on the impulse. A good man would walk away; he would continue to ignore the attachment growing between them. A good man would not tell her what she wants to hear. A good man would protect her.

Oliver Queen is not a good man.

Oliver Queen is a selfish, utter bastard.

And that's why he kisses her.


	5. Trying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the rating change. Also, this is probably the last update before 2015. Probably.
> 
> Also, just in case you missed it, I might have [read a certain scene from the previous chapter](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/post/102515461118/earlier-today-i-got-bored-while-i-was-supposed-to) on my tumblr.

When Felicity wakes up, she's duct-taped to a metal chair in the middle of a dark, dingy room. Her feet are bare. Someone's taken her shoes off, and her ankles are bound together with wire. That's...disconcerting.

Carefully, she tests the bonds on her wrists. A mixture of Tommy and Oliver's advice regarding hostage and torture situations starts playing in her head. Find out who they are. Find out what they want. Figure out ways to escape. Figure out how to turn the tables on them.

Survive.

Neither Tommy nor Oliver is coming for her. She's got to save herself.

The door swings open with a sickening  _creek_ , and Felicity jerks her head up to look at her captor. He's carrying something under his arm that she can't quite make out.

"What is that?" She thinks it speaks volumes about who she is as a person that she's more worried about what her captor is  _holding_  rather than who he  _is_.

"Incentive. To get you to tell me what I want to know."

She may primarily work with computers—both software and hardware—but as soon as Felicity gets a good view of the object in the man's arms, she immediately understands the significance of the device he's holding, especially since she just used a similar one in interrogation yesterday. This machine is cruder, not sleek and stylized like the one Division uses.

That fact makes it scarier somehow.

"I don't know anything," Felicity says, craning her neck to keep him in sight as he moves behind her. He's fiddling with wires and knobs and buttons.

"That's not true," he says, "Your people have my brother."

He moves in front of her and holds a black and white photo in front of her eyes. "His name is Joseph."

"I don't know him. I've never seen that man before." She's helpless to stop her voice from wavering through the lie. She has seen that man before. Yesterday. When she electrocuted him.

"We'll see." He bends down, putting the machine on the ground. It's then that she realizes he's connecting it to the wires wrapped around her legs. And then the man is grabbing a set of jumper cables to attach onto the box, and words are flying out of Felicity's mouth as fast as humanly possible.

"Please don't hurt me. There's nothing I can tell you. I don't know where he is. I don't know. I'm telling you the truth. I swear. I'm telling you the truth. Please don't hurt me. Plea—"

He twists a knob on the machine.

Felicity throws her head back and  _screams._

* * *

Oliver intends for the kiss to be quick, simple. It's supposed to be a goodbye, perhaps even a small acknowledgement that he feels this  _something_  between them too. Except Felicity responds to him instantly, tilting her head and parting her lips. Her hands come up to grasp his arms, but she doesn't push him away.

He tries to stop it, he really does, but Felicity is humming against his mouth, and soon her fingers are trailing down his chest. When she breaks the kiss to swing a leg over his lap so she can straddle him, his brain doesn't clear enough for him to focus on the fact that they should be stopping, not allowing this moment to get more intense.

But Felicity's on his lap, wearing nothing but her tank top and a pair of too-short cut-off shorts, her bare legs bracketing his hips. Gently, he pulls the elastic from her ponytail so her hair falls free around her shoulders. She tugs on the bottom of his tee-shirt, and Oliver lets her break the kiss to pull it over his head. He sighs when her fingertips trail against his skin. She traces his abs, and her thumb brushes across a white puckered scar where a bullet pieced his side. He shouldn't have lived through that encounter.

He shouldn't be alive for this moment now.

"Tell me to stop," she whispers against his mouth, and he wants to scoff at the irony. Tell  _her_  to stop. A minute ago, he was about to say the same thing, about to beg her to tell him to stop, because this is a choice they shouldn't make. They both know they shouldn't, but this might be the only time they ever get. They don't have the luxury of a thousand tomorrows.

They might not even have the luxury of one.

"Felicity," he says instead, sliding his hands beneath her tank top and loving the way she melts under his touch. "Felicity, Felicity, Felicity..."

She flicks open the button of his jeans at the same time she presses a kiss to a scar right beneath is collarbone, rocking her hips against his.

And Oliver's completely and totally gone after that. She's so small and so soft and so very  _breakable_. For just a few minutes he wants to wrap her up in his arms, hide her away from the world. Keep her safe, down here in their foundry with nothing but him and her machines and nothing that can hurt her.

He twists around to lay Felicity down on the mattress, unable to stop his smile as her hair splays out on the pillow beneath her. Carefully, he kneels on the bed so he can climb over her, kissing the skin of her stomach that her tank top has exposed and pulling the material up to reveal more of her body.

She wiggles beneath him, her fingers carding through his hair. Sliding her shirt up with one hand, he gently maneuvers her arms up above her head with the other so he can pull the tank top up and off. Felicity catches it between her fingers and flings it away, then loops her arms around his neck, pulling him in for a deep, slow kiss. Her thighs press into the sides of his hips.

Dragging his hands down her body again, Oliver slips them both past the waistband of her shorts.

" _Oh_ ," Felicity says softly. "Oliv—"

He cuts her off by  _ripping_  those infernal shorts from her body, and the way she sighs in response tells him that was a good call. Besides, it's not like she can take them to Division with her.

That thought, that reminder of their circumstances, almost makes him stop. But then Felicity's fingers are trailing down his chest, finding scars and marks she's seen so many times. He's long ago stopped worrying about what she thinks of them, long ago gotten used to the look in her eyes when he works out shirtless. Still, there are so many things she doesn't know.

Oliver closes his eyes when her hands move even lower.

"Hey," she asks softly. "Where'd you go?"

He opens his eyes and looks down at her. She stares up at him, her eyes filled with concern he doesn't deserve.

"Doesn't matter," he says. "I'm back now."

She grips his belt loops and leans up to press a kiss on the underside of his jaw as she uses her hands to shove his pants down and then her legs and feet to finish the job. Oliver shakes his legs a couple of times to help her along the way.

And then he presses her body firmly against his so he can feel every inch of her skin on his as he kisses her senseless. It takes only a few seconds to lose himself in her again.

When he pulls away, she's panting and whining and utterly desperate in his arms. The situation is going to escalate even further if they keep this up, but as much as Oliver doesn't want to stop, he also doesn't want to push her into something she's not comfortable with, so he asks, "What do you want, Felicity?"

One of her hands slips beneath the waistband of his boxers, and he whispers a soft curse against her neck in response to her touch.

"You," she says, pausing to catch his lips in a desperate kiss before she continues, "I want  _you_  inside me _now_."

Oliver groans into her mouth; he can work with that.

* * *

Felicity's screams do uncomfortable things to Barry's stomach. In hindsight, he probably shouldn't have eaten breakfast this morning. Events like this just aren't normally in his job description. Any one of his technicians could be here running video and communications for a typical exercise like this one, but Isabel was insistent on him being here, even though Shado would have been fine with him getting someone else to do it.

It's been five hours since Felicity woke up inside one of Division's safe houses. Five hours of interrogation and torture. Five hours of Barry gritting his teeth and digging his nails onto the arms of his chair so he doesn't do something incredibly stupid, like launch himself across the room at Malcolm Merlyn and demand that he stop this pathetic excuse for a training exercise  _right this instant_.

The record time for this exercise is eighteen hours. He's not sure how far they plan on pushing Felicity, but Barry's well aware that they could be in for a long night.

"I'm going to up the electric current, now," Agent Miller is telling a sobbing Felicity. "Unless you tell me what I want to know."

"Please," she whimpers. "Please stop."

"Tell me what I want to know."

"I don't  _know_  what you want to know. How many times do I have to say it before you  _believe_  me?"

Miller twists the dial up and flips a switch. No matter how much Barry wants to look away, he can't seem to force himself to take his eyes off of the screen.

"This is twisted," Barry says, trying to ignore the way Felicity's whole body shudders when Miller gives her a few seconds of relief from the torment. "We don't usually push them this hard."

"Do you have an emotional conflict?" Isabel snaps.

Barry jumps out of his seat, "That's my  _friend_  he's torturing in there. Of course I have an emotional conflict."

"Sit down, Barry. It'll be over soon." Shado says calmly. "Isabel, don't talk to my people like that."

"They're not just your people, and I will talk to them however I like," Isabel snaps.

"Ladies," Merlyn says, and his tone allows for no further arguing.

Barry glances over at Tommy, who's loosening his tie. He doesn't appear any happier about the situation, though Barry's sure he knew it was coming when he allowed Felicity to get on that bus.

"Malcolm," Shado says softly. "It's past time we ended this, don't you think? Remember what happened to Angler when we pushed him too hard?"

Quickly, Merlyn glances at Isabel. "What do you think?"

"I think it's time to bring in the kid," Isabel says.

Barry doesn't miss the look of trepidation Tommy gives Shado, or the way Shado mutely shakes her head ever-so-slightly.

With a nod of agreement, Malcolm says, "Do it."

Quickly, Barry relays the message through the comm unit, and watches as a group of three men—part of Miller's tactical team—drag in a lifeless Roy Harper.

When she sees her friend, Felicity's cries take on a completely different tone. There's no more fear or pleading, instead there's a sharp tang of grief when her yell turns into a horrified sob.

"What did you do?" she cries. "What did you do to him?"

Barry knows it's only a drug, designed to stop his heart and slow his breathing, but the fact is that for Felicity, her friend was just killed and his dead body is lying on the ground in front of her. She's crying and straining against her bonds. Her breathing is shallow, and her whole body is damp with sweat.

"It's time to start talking," Agent Miller tells her. "Unless you want to end up like your friend here."

And then Felicity just deflates. Her shoulders fall and tears drip from her eyes as she just stares at Roy.

"I'll tell you what you want to know," she says, numbly, like all the fight from a few moments ago has just left her in one quick  _whoosh_. Her lower lip trembles. "I'll tell you everything."

"Here we go," Isabel says, and the excitement in her voice makes Barry sick.

"Who do you work for?" Miller asks.

Felicity's answer is inaudible, and Barry watches as Miller moves closer to hear what she's saying. Her lips keep moving, and Miller keeps moving closer. He bends down to place his ear right by her mouth, and that's when Barry realizes what Felicity's doing.

He doesn't have time to warn anyone though, because one moment Felicity appears to be struggling for breath as she tells Miller what he wants to know, and the next moment she's freed one hand, and delivered a relatively powerful blow to the side of Miller's head, using the momentum of the punch to knock the chair she's sitting in over so she can free her other wrist. How she shakes out of the bonds around her ankles, Barry isn't sure, but after a quick exchange of blows, she's out of the chair and Miller is down on the ground. Felicity scrambles for his gun.

Behind Barry, Malcolm is yelling and Isabel's voice is sharp, but Barry's eyes are glued to the screen. It's Shado's voice that breaks through the trance he's fallen in. "—call Peterson to get her out of there, Barry."

TAC teams. Right. Let the TAC team know what's happening so that Felicity doesn't hurt herself or Miller or anyone else. He hops onto the comms to tell them what's going on.

He stops in mid-sentence when the gunshot goes off.

Barry turns to look at the nearest screen. Miller lies on the ground, blood pooling beneath his unmoving body. The gun is in Felicity's trembling hands.

"Who let him bring a loaded gun in there?" Tommy is yelling, and Barry's trying to form words to explain the situation to the head of the TAC unit, but Shado takes the microphone from him and starts speaking calmly and evenly. Barry can't focus on what she's saying; he's too focused on Felicity.

She sets the gun down and races around Miller's body. There's a long pipe on a nearby table, and after she uses it to barricade the door, she runs for the only window in the room, climbing on the table beneath it so she can reach the latch. When it doesn't immediately give, she grabs a wrench from the table. It takes a few good hits, but the glass eventually shatters. Felicity clears it aside with the wrench and scrambles through the window.

"She's out," Barry tells Shado.

"I'm going to get her," Tommy says, grabbing his jacket and heading for the door.

"Peterson's team will get her," Isabel tells him.

"She's just been through a trauma. She's not going to trust anyone she doesn't recognize," Tommy argues, and Barry's inclined to agree, though he's not quite up to saying so.

"Go," Shado says, ignoring the venomous glare Isabel levels at her. "Go now."

"There's a gas station a few miles west of her position," Barry calls out, having pulled up Felicity's tracker as soon as she climbed through the window. "Looks like that's where she's headed."

There's practically smoke pouring out of Isabel's ears, but the expression on Tommy's face is one of gratitude. He exchanges a quick glance with Shado, and then he's gone.

"Let him go," Merlyn tells Isabel, putting a hand on her shoulder to hold her back. "We'll deal with him later."

* * *

As it turns out, Felicity during sex is a non-stop stream of completely adorable dirty-talk. The accidental innuendos she lets slip every day have  _nothing_  on the way she speaks when she's actually making an effort. She blushes with every word, a flush that spreads across her cheeks and down her neck. Oliver presses kisses to her neck, alternating between soft and light, and slow and tender.

He's wanted this for a long time, but it's more than that. He doesn't want just  _this_. He wants everything. He wants a future, a life with her away from danger. He wants to be with her without knowing there's a ticking clock, without fearing that there might never be another chance. He wants to hope again.

Felicity's skin is soft, and her voice is heavenly. It's breathy and sweet. Oliver catches her lips every so often, stopping her babbles mid-sentence with deep kisses. As soon as he stops kissing her, she always returns right back to the same train of thought: telling him how good something feels, telling him to do something slower or faster or  _again_.

She's intoxicating in the best way, and he feels drugged by her, lost in her,  _consumed_  by her. His mission is nothing; Division is nothing; they're both eclipsed by the happiness and ecstasy that is Felicity Smoak's body aligned with his own and the sound of her voice crying his name as they both tip over the edge.

Felicity cries through her climax, tears slipping down her cheeks as her nails bite into the skin of his back, his name nothing more than a whisper on her lips.

He's only a second or two behind, gasping and shaking and holding onto her like she's his only lifeline.

Aftershocks are still causing her body to tremble when he kisses her, long and slow and deep, like he can pour his soul into it if he does it properly. He doesn't know how he's going to say goodbye tomorrow.

When their lips separate, she's breathing heavily.

"Okay?" he asks.

"Better than that," she replies with a soft smile, and even though he meant  _are you okay?_  his ego isn't going to protest the confusion.

Effortlessly, Oliver turns them so they're lying side-by-side. They're still close, pressed together because the bed is just a twin. His arms are around her back and shoulders, and her legs are intertwined with his.

"How much better than okay?" he asks. She gives him a look that's pure Felicity, pursed lips—lipstick faded and smeared and  _that_  is a sight Oliver's sure he could get used to—and arched brow.

Alright then, so it was  _that_  much better than okay.

His grin must be wide, because she reaches up with her hand and lightly taps her fingers against his cheek. "Stop that," she tells him.

"Stop what?"

"Looking at me like that." She bites her lip and suddenly the moment is very, very different. It's heavier, somehow.

"Looking at you like what, Felicity?" He's helpless to stop the way his voice lowers, the way his arms tighten around her.

"You're smiling, Oliver," she says. "I've never seen you smile like this before."

Oliver doesn't have an explanation for that, at least, not one he can say out loud, so he kisses her again.

"I'll be right back," he promises, brushing her hair back away from her face. He pulls the blankets over her body and tucks them around her.

When he returns a few moments later, she's crying softly, and it breaks his heart. He cups her cheek with his hand, and she turns her head to press a kiss onto his palm as he lies down beside her.

"I'm scared," she whispers.

"I know," he says. "And you're doing it anyway, and I don't think you understand how brave that makes you."

"I don't regret this," she tells him, a gesture of her hand making it clear she means the two of them and not the mission tomorrow. "I need you to know that. This might be the only thing that gets me through what happens next."

"Felicity, I—" He stops, and more tears drip down Felicity's cheeks.

"I know, Oliver," she says, and she hides her face in the side of his neck. "I know."

Then there's nothing to be done except hold her until she falls asleep.

* * *

Once she's slipped through the small window and made it to the road, Felicity picks a direction and  _runs_  without stopping. She ignores the pain in her feet and the aches in her body.

The gas station and the phone booth are a miracle. That the phone is still working—who uses phone booths anymore?—is even  _more_  of a miracle.

Her hands shake as she dials one of the eight emergency numbers Oliver had her memorize before she infiltrated Division. He answers almost immediately. "Felicity?"

The story comes out in a jumble of words. She's not sure how Oliver manages to comprehend half of what she's saying, but he's traced the phone call and is on his way to her location before she's even finished telling him what's happened.

"You need to prepare yourself for the possibility that this was a Division test," he says, and she swears her heart stops.

"What?"

"It's not outside the realm of possibility, what you're describing sounds eerily similar to an experience I had right after I arrived."

"But I killed him, Oliver. I shot him and he's...he's  _dead_."

"I know, but you didn't know any better. You believed you were in life-threatening danger. Stick to that story. For right now, get yourself somewhere hidden and don't come out until you see me."

He hangs up, and Felicity scans the area. The gas station does have a few customers, but it doesn't look like any of them are paying attention to her. The best thing to do  _is_  probably to hide and wait for Oliver to show up.

Every second feels like an hour by the time a black four-door pulls into the lot and a man in a brown leather jacket climbs out.

Felicity's heart stops.

 _Oliver_.

She breaks into a run. Every step hurts her bare feet, but every step brings her closer to Oliver, so she doesn't care. Felicity flings her arms around him, and he catches her easily, lifting her so she can wrap her legs snugly around his hips. His lips meet hers in a kiss that's overpowering in its fierceness. It's desperate and frantic, more like a series of kisses than one long singular kiss, and Felicity doesn't want it to end.

"You okay?" he asks when he pulls away.

"Yeah," she answers, "But what are we going to do, Oliver? If what you said is true, I killed a  _Division_   _agent_."

"I don't—" Oliver stops and curses softly. "There's a car coming."

He drags her back behind the cab of an eighteen-wheeler just as a black SUV pulls into the lot.

"It's Division," Felicity says softly.

"You have to go back," Oliver whispers.

She doesn't want to go back, but she knows Division won't just let her go. They'll keep looking for her, until she's taken back, taken out, or taken them down. She hopes it's the last one.

Still, this is the first time she's seen Oliver in months. She doesn't want to—she  _can't_ —let him go.

"Go," Oliver tells her. She can hear the sounds of the SUV doors opening and footsteps on the gravel. "They can't find me here with you."

She presses her lips to his in a searing kiss that probably lasts longer than it should.

"Felicity!" It's Tommy's voice calling her name, and it makes her stomach lurch.

"Oliver, I—" She doesn't know how to say everything she wants to say. There's too much to say and not enough time to say it.

"I  _know_ , Felicity," he says. "Now,  _go_."

Slowly, Felicity steps back, away from him. None of Division's men even notice when she comes out from behind the truck. "Tommy," she says, trying to remind herself that the Felicity he knows would be  _happy_  that he's come for her, that she's safe.

Tommy turns, and Felicity sees the relief in his shoulders when he realizes that she's okay. When he runs towards her, Felicity can't help the instinctive step backwards that she takes. She doesn't want to go with him. She wants to go back to the foundry with Oliver, curl up in his arms and let his heartbeat lull her to sleep.

It takes every ounce of willpower she possesses not to turn and look back at where Oliver was hiding a few moments ago.

As soon as Tommy reaches her, he rests his hands on her shoulders and he reassures her that she's alright, he's not going to hurt her.

"You did great," he tells her. "You did great, Felicity. You're safe now."

No, she was safe three minutes ago when Oliver's arms were around her. She's in danger  _now_. "They hurt me, they  _killed_  Roy."

"Roy's fine; it was a test," he says, and she waits a beat to let that information sink in before she slaps him.

"It was a  _test_? I  _shot_  that man. He's  _dead_." And she was the one who  _killed_  him.  _Murdered_  him. The weight of that hits her fully, and she almost loses her balance.

Tommy steadies her. "You thought he was going to kill you. You did what you had to do."

"What's...what's Malcolm going to do?" She doesn't have to fake the terror in her voice. It's very real.

"Nothing," Tommy says. "He's not going to do anything to you. I'm not going to let him. We're going to get you back to Division, and a doctor is going to look at you. I promise, Felicity. I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

And even against her better judgment, Felicity believes him.

"C'mon," Tommy says, bending down and lifting her with one arm under her knees and the other supporting her back. "Let's go."

He carries her back to the car. Over his shoulder she watches the place Oliver was just a few minutes ago, hoping that he's long gone and Division doesn't find him.

"It's gonna be okay, Felicity," Tommy says, opening the passenger door for her and gently setting her on the seat. Just before Tommy shuts the door, he says, "Let's get you back to Division."


	6. Tempting

The first person Felicity sees upon her return to Division is Roy. He's waiting right outside the elevator when the doors open. Tommy's arm is around her shoulders, and he's pushing her forward, but Felicity manages to grab Roy's shoulder as they move past.

"I'm glad you're okay," she says softly.

He gives her a sad smile and mouths the words _I'm sorry_.

She's just happy he's real, and relieved that he didn't die because of her. It's hard to pull her eyes away from him, but she doesn't have much choice when Tommy suddenly stops walking. Felicity almost loses her balance, but Tommy steadies her as she turns to see why he stopped.

The second person Felicity sees when she returns to Division is Malcolm Merlyn.

Dressed in a sharp three-piece suit, Merlyn stands at the end of the hall with his lips twisted into a smirk.

"So," he says, in a voice that makes Felicity's stomach feel sick, " _You're_ Felicity Smoak."

She wants to say something, anything, but all she can think about is how this is the man who is responsible for her father's absence. Her father's probable _death_.

And she wants to kill him.

Malcolm steps towards her, and Felicity leans into Tommy—for moral as well as physical support.

"We haven't had anyone escape that training exercise in a very long time. Impressive."

" _Training_  exercise?" Felicity asks. There's no need to feign her incredulousness, just because Oliver already told her it was probably an exercise. It was an extreme one. It _terrified_ her beyond all reason, and—"I  _killed_  someone."

Malcolm's expression flips from amused to stern in less than a second. "And you'll do it again. And again, and again, and  _again_. And when you're not pulling the trigger yourself, you'll be helping someone else do it. That is your position and your purpose in this organization. If you question my orders again,  _you_  will be the one with a bullet in your brain. Do you understand?"

Felicity squares her shoulders and meets his gaze evenly. She hopes he can't tell that her heart is thundering and her palms are sweating. "Completely, sir."

All the sternness vanishes from his gaze, and Merlyn smiles. He taps her nose with his first finger. When he speaks, his tone is light and joking. "You're rather  _remarkable_ , Felicity Smoak. I'm going to have to keep my eye on you."

"I need to get her to medical," Tommy says, tugging ever-so-slightly on Felicity's arm so she starts moving with him. "And then get her debriefed."

"Get her to medical. Handle the debrief in the morning. I think she's been through enough for one evening."

Without saying a word, Tommy escorts her to medical, and it doesn't escape Felicity's notice that he stands guard outside the door while the doctor examines her.

She's a bit dehydrated and covered with a few cuts and bruises. One of the gashes on her wrist needs stitches, but other than that, there's really nothing more to be done other than to get some fluids inside her and let her get some sleep.

Tommy comes to sit beside her once the doctor has left.

"I don't want to stay here," she immediately tells him.

"It's the doctor's orders, Felicity," Tommy says. "I can't go around them."

"Aw, c'mon," Barry says from the doorway. "I got to recuperate in my room that one time I twisted my ankle."

"You fell down the stairs," Tommy says. "And you were on crutches for two weeks. Felicity just needs to be monitored for the night."

Wandering over to Felicity's bed, Barry hands her a thermos. "I brought you tea."

"Not coffee?"

"You're not allowed to have coffee right now," he says. "The tea is soothing. But I could go make you some hot chocolate really quickly if you'd rather have that?"

"Tea's fine," Felicity says, taking a sip. "Thank you."

Tommy stands up. "I'll be by in the morning to check on you. You did well tonight, Smoak."

She doesn't feel like she did well. She killed someone. Under no circumstances should that be considered a victory. Tommy clasps her shoulder in his hand and gives it a gentle squeeze.

"You want me to stay with you?" Barry asks after Tommy leaves. "I'll run and grab my tablet and we'll hack into Netflix and watch some witty comedy. You can pick."

"You have a Netflix account," Felicity tells him.

He shrugs. "But hacking in is fun."

"Thanks," she says, touched.

He comes and goes remarkably fast, returning with his tablet quicker than Felicity thought humanly possible. In his absence, she's scooted herself over to one side of the bed so he can squeeze into the empty space next to her. This bed is slightly wider than a normal twin sized mattress would be, but that doesn't stop Barry from needing to slip an arm around Felicity's shoulders in order for them to both be comfortable.

"Felicity," Barry says quietly as he watches her scroll through the list of movies with a still-trembling hand. "Are you sure you're really okay?

She turns to look at him. All she sees in his eyes is concern and care.

Slowly, as if afraid he's going to scare her, Barry takes her hand. "Because I saw what went down in that room, and...if it were me, I wouldn't be okay."

She doesn't have an answer for him, except she knows that she's _not_ okay. She feels wrong somehow, like some important piece of her has been broken.

As it turns out, he doesn't need an answer. Reaching out, Barry hugs her, and Felicity finally breaks down.

"I've never seen anybody die before," she cries into his shoulder. "And I did it without thinking. I just pulled a trigger and now someone is _dead_."

"You thought he was going to hurt you. There wasn't a choice."

"There _was_ ," she says softly. "There had to be. I could have let him kill me."

"Hey," Barry says, pulling back and staring at her with an utterly stricken look on his face. "Don't you say that. Don't say that, Felicity. That was _not_ an acceptable outcome, do you hear me?"

He pulls her into another hug, murmuring words of comfort and consolation that she can't begin to process in the state that she's in. She doesn't sleep for a moment that night, but Barry does. She rests in his arms until morning comes.

* * *

 

Felicity has only been inside Division for a few days when everything in Oliver's world begins to go sideways. It begins when a bomb goes off in the foyer of Queen Consolidated. No one is killed, but several are injured.

Oliver sees the event for what it is. Merlyn's grown tired of waiting around for Oliver to make a move. He's trying to draw Oliver out into the open.

For Felicity's sake, Oliver needs to let him. If he can pop up in Starling, show up just enough to draw Malcolm's attention away from Felicity, then she has a chance of being able to infiltrate Division without needing to worry about Malcolm examining her too closely. She'll be inside Division, building trust and creating allies, and Malcolm's attention will be focused on Oliver while that's happening.

It's too soon for Felicity to have planted the shell program, so he's on his own for this one. Fortunately, he thinks he has a pretty good idea of what he's up against. She's left him with a program to help him break into a variety of law-enforcement databases, and a quick examination of the bomb in question leaves Oliver with little doubt as to its origin. He'd recognize Shado's work anywhere. Add to that the fact that the blast didn't actually kill anyone, and Oliver's certain Shado is the one Malcolm sent to draw him out.

He hasn't stepped foot in Starling since he'd gotten on the Queen's Gambit. It was too risky. Someone could see him. Someone could recognize him. Everywhere else in the world, nobody cared to know that he was a supposedly dead playboy. In Starling he could draw attention. For that reason, Oliver is just a little surprised that Malcolm had obviously agreed to this. The last thing Merlyn would want was the press finding out Oliver was alive. They could start asking questions Merlyn—and Oliver—didn't want answered.

Shado is subtle though, which is why Oliver thinks Merlyn sent her. The bombing is already being blamed on a group of protestors angry with some of Queen Consolidated's shadier business dealings.

Since this is all an attempt to draw him out, Oliver doesn't think she'll be hard to find.

He's right.

The first place Oliver goes in Starling City is the graveyard. He walks for a bit until he finds the headstones of Oliver Queen and Robert Queen sitting side-by-side. Wandering a little farther, he finally pauses at the grave of Tommy Merlyn.

Oliver bends down, staring at the inscription.

 _Beloved son_.

The words are a lie. He was a beloved son in the eyes of one and a pawn in the eyes of the other.

"I'm sorry," Oliver whispers, reaching out to touch the headstone. "He took you because of me."

He doesn't turn around when he hears soft footsteps approaching.

"Of all the places I thought you'd go if you ever returned to Starling, this wasn't at the top of my list," Shado tells him.

"But it _was_ on your list," Oliver says, straightening. He tosses the motion sensor hidden at the food of Tommy's grave at her. She catches it one-handed, and he sees the quick pull of a smirk on the corner of her lips before her face settles back into a neutral expression.

"How is he?" Oliver asks.

"Alive. Alone. His father ignores him, isolates him. He's one of Malcolm's favorites for Raven Missions. He's good; better than you, but he hates them."

Oliver doesn't blame him. Seductions were his least favorite assignments as well.

"He doesn't understand why you left Division and never looked back," Shado says.

"I looked back."

Casually, she takes a step to her right, and Oliver backs left to compensate. Neither of them have drawn guns, but hand-to-hand isn't out of the question if he lets her get too close.

Shado holds her hands up in a gesture of surrender. When she speaks, her voice is deceptively even. "Rumor is that you're out to destroy us, Oliver. All of us. Your endgame is to burn Division down."

"Not the people," he says. "Just the program."

"The program can _work_ , Oliver. It _did_ work. The problem wasn't the program the problem was—"

"—Malcolm," he finishes. "I know."

"Then you know that I will do _whatever_ it takes to get the program back on track without disbanding Division. We used to do good work. We can do that again."

"Who's gonna run it, Shado?" he asks, and he sees the way the question impacts her. She's _very_ good at hiding her reactions to things, but this question has thrown her off guard. "You? Me? Tommy? Your father tried to change it from the inside. _My_ father tried to change it from the inside and look at where it got them? You want to give Division a heart transplant, you're welcome to keep on trying, but the only way to take down this monster is to cut off its _head_."

"So another organization can take its place?" she asks, and like everything about her, the words are gentle. "You and I both know as soon as it's gone it'll create a vacuum that needs to be filled. It won't end. The world needs its protection."

"Division doesn't protect anyone. Not you, not me, not anyone."

"It's _supposed_ to," she says, taking another step. They're circling one another now, their actions mirroring their conversation. He suspects that both of them have figured this out, but neither of them are in a hurry to start the fight that will ensue once the talking has concluded.

They're at an impasse. Neither of them wants to acknowledge it. They disagree on methods, not motivation.

"You can't do anything more from the inside," he says, not because he needs her out of Division, but because she needs to hear him say it. "Come with me."

Shado gestures to Tommy's headstone. "There are still people inside Division that I need to protect, Oliver."

There's no way for him to conceivably argue with that. He _wants_ her inside Division keeping Tommy—and hopefully Felicity—safe.

"I'm supposed to bring you back with me," she says. He watches the way her hand moves to the holster on her hip, and he mirrors the motion.

"You and I both know that's not why you really came here."

She shrugs her shoulders. Whether that's her way of admitting to having a kill order for him or her admitting to seeking out this conversation, Oliver can't tell.

For a beat, they're both still, waiting for the other to make a move.

"If you were sent here to bring me in, Shado, you would have brought a TAC team," Oliver points out. "Malcolm wanted you to kill me. Or he wanted me to kill you."

"Or he wanted us to take out each other." She lets her arm fall limp at her side, and understanding washes over Oliver slowly when she says, "Make it look good."

"You wore your Kevlar, like a good little agent," he says softly. As he lifts his Glock and sights his target, he hesitates. He thinks of the first time he fired a gun inside Division, remembers Shado telling him _you never_ _point a gun at anything you don't fully intend to destroy_.

He keeps his eyes on Shado's face as she just stands there, waiting. Holding a gun to Division's head means holding a gun to _hers_ , and Oliver does not want to destroy her. He does not want her caught in the crossfire any more than he wants Tommy or Felicity standing right in his crosshairs.

He's just out of options.

She doesn't flinch when Oliver pulls the trigger.

Once she's down, he runs over to her. If anyone's watching, they'll think he's going for her gun—which he is—but he also wants to double check that her vest caught the bullets.

He takes her Beretta and whispers, "You have back up on the way?"

"Five minutes," she says, and the words are strained. He probably bruised a few ribs. "Take the head start. I'm fine."

"I'm sorry," Oliver says as he backs away.

"Me too," he hears Shado reply.

* * *

 

The night after Felicity's return to Division—after a full day of being watched so closely she doesn't _dare_ make contact with Oliver—the door to her room is buzzed open. Dim light from the hallway fills the tiny space. Felicity sits up in bed and blinks a few times, fumbling for her glasses on the nightstand. Even before she's put them on, she easily recognizes the shadowed figure standing in her doorway as Barry.

"What's going on?" she asks, immediately on high alert. She slips out of bed and into the pair of flip-flops she left on the floor nearby. "Is something wrong?"

"Come with me, but be quiet," Barry says, taking her hand. "There's something you need to see."

Silently, the two of them make their way through the halls, and down to the place Felicity's learned everyone calls Technical Operations, even though that's sort a misnomer. She thinks of it as Barry's domain. The _real_ Operations—the room with huge two-way mirrors looking out into the training area—where the actual missions are quarterbacked by Tommy, Shado, or one of the other senior agents—is on another level of the facility entirely.

He leads her over to his desk and types on the keyboard for a few seconds. Felicity pulls up a chair and sits beside him, peering at the screen over his shoulder. He pulls up a video file, starts playing it, and then sits back.

"What am I looking at?" Felicity asks.

"This is the video feed for Malcolm Merlyn's office," Barry says.

Felicity feels her blood run cold. "How did you get this?"

"Doesn't matter," he says, which is code for 'hacked' as far as Felicity's concerned. Although, since Barry set up the system, she's not all that surprised he has a back door into it. "This was filmed last night, right after you came in."

The angle of the camera shows Merlyn's desk. He sits behind it, both legs propped up on the far edge, ankles crossed. Isabel Rochev stands at the mini bar with her back to the camera.

"I don't know why you're upset," Malcolm says. "I'd call the entire operation a success."

"I'm not _upset_ ," Isabel says, "I just don't understand why the whiney little bitch has so much of your interest."

"It wasn't Smoak that I was testing."

"I'm aware. I was referring to the _other_ whiney little bitch." She walks over to his desk and hands him his drink. "I'm _also_ aware that Shado and Smoak aren't the reason you're concerned about Thomas, so what _is_?"

"My son thinks he knows how to play chess," Merlyn says. "He's just doesn't understand what it means to go up against a grand master."

"You think he'd stage a _coup_?"

"I think he's weak. I think he's ruled by his emotions, and those emotions are dangerously entangled with Shado. He's wrapped around her finger, and he doesn't even see how loyal he is to her. If they ever make a foolish attempt to overthrow me, I need to know which specific buttons to press to compromise that loyalty."

"Felicity?" Isabel asks.

"It's a start," Malcolm replies, taking a sip of his bourbon. "He's always fancied himself a white night. Felicity, Shado, Laurel Lance...it doesn't matter as long as he feels like he has someone to protect."

"Shado's an antique," Isabel says. "She should have been disposed of ages ago. You didn't listen to me, and now she's becoming a threat."

Felicity notes the subtle sneer Malcolm gives Isabel. "She's a _useful_ antique. Besides, the agents she's trained are loyal to her. It will be difficult to get her out of the way without testing that loyalty."

Isabel takes a seat on the edge of his desk. "There are ways to eliminate her while making their attachment to Division stronger. It's why you sent her after Queen. You were hoping he'd take care of the problem for you, make himself even more of an enemy."

"That was rash of me." Malcolm sighs. "I thought threatening Queen's mother and sister would encourage him to take her out, but neither of them had the stomach to do what needed to be done."

"They always held an affection for one another," Isabel points out. "But you say the word, and I can make that affection go away like _that_." She snaps her fingers to punctuate the last word.

"Not yet," Merlyn says. "If she can serve as a distraction for Queen and for Thomas, all the better."

"She'll figure it out."

"The name of the game is misdirection," he says smoothly, leaning back in his chair. "Keeping their focus on one seemingly important thing until it's too late for them to see what's been going on right under their nose."

"And what is that?"

Malcolm starts to answer, but at that moment there's a knock on his office door. He holds up his first finger. "Later," he tells Isabel, then he calls out, "Enter."

Felicity watches two men walk into the room. For a few moments all she sees is the back of their heads, but Barry taps a few keys and switches cameras. The next feed clearly displays their faces. One of the men is Tommy, but Felicity's eyes glance right over him when she notices who he's with.

"He's alive," she whispers. "But I _shot_ him."

"Merlyn made sure there were blanks in the gun," Barry says softly. "He had the entire situation controlled from start to finish."

"I didn't kill him," Felicity says. There's a conversation happening on screen but she can't focus on it in the face of this new revelation. "I didn't—I didn't _kill_ him."

"No," Barry says. "You didn't." Then, suddenly, he continues, "I didn't _know_ , Felicity. I didn't know until I saw this, and the only reason I didn't—didn't tell you was because I figured you needed to see it to believe it."

Tears are streaming down her cheeks. "They were never going to tell me? _Tommy_ was never going to tell me?"

"You probably wouldn't have found out until you needed to know," Barry says. "Look, Felicity, you might very well kill someone for this organization someday. They will ask you to do horrible things in service of the greater good. But this—" he gestures to the screen— "I would never have shown this to you if this wasn't a guilt you didn't deserve to carry."

Her attention jumps back to the video when she hears Malcolm say the words "black box." Barry's still rubbing her back, and she's still sniffling, but she listens to Malcolm explain that he's going to be leaving in a few days to see someone. She misses the name when Barry says something consoling.

"Do you have any tissues down here?" she asks.

When Barry goes to get some for her, Felicity rewinds the video. Tommy and the other man are gone, and Malcolm and Isabel are conversing in hushed tones.

"Is there still no check-in from Wilson?" Isabel asks.

"No," Malcolm says, "But Allen assures me the black box hasn't been tampered with or accessed in any way."

"And all the other Guardians have completed the check in?"

"Yes."

"What do you want to do?"

Malcolm looks contemplative. "Give him another 24 hours. If he doesn't check in, I'll go to Central City to deal with it myself."

She needs to tell Oliver. It's been 24 hours, so it's possible that Merlyn is on his way there right now. On the other hand, if Wilson _did_ make his scheduled check in, then Malcolm would have no reason to go to Central City, and maybe Oliver can get his hands on one of the boxes.

It's dangerous to try to get to the computer lab tonight, but she might be able to manage it if Barry lets her walk back to her room by herself.

Isabel is standing up and starting to leave when Felicity hears Barry coming back. Quickly, Felicity scoots her chair away from the desk and hides her head in her hands. Tapping back into that sense of extreme relief that she's not a killer is easy, and soon the tears are flowing again.

Kindly, Barry hands her a box of tissues. She blows her nose quietly as Barry sits down across from her. Almost as an afterthought, he leans over to tap a few keys on the keyboard and the screen goes black. Then he takes her hands in his.

She doesn't think he suspects a thing.

* * *

 

The second he sees Shado walking down a Division hallway, Tommy doesn't give training Felicity a second thought. He's out of the room and calling Shado's name without really processing what he's doing.

She turns at the sound of his voice, and he's instantly glad this particular corridor is deserted. Whatever this conversation is going to be, he doesn't think he wants anyone else hearing it.

"Hey," he says, when he reaches her. "You're alive." He can't help the relief that floods his voice. He wants to hug her, hold onto her as proof that she really did come back safely. But he's not sure if he's allowed to do that yet. Hell, he's not sure if he'll be allowed to do that _ever_. "Are you okay?"

"I've just got some bruises, but we can't talk about this here."

Tommy's well aware of that, but there are still things he wants to know. "Is he still alive?"

After a quick glance around to be sure they're not going to be overheard, Shado answers. "Yes. Come with me."

She pulls him into the armory and keeps the lights off. In the darkness, Tommy reaches for her. One of his hands cups her shoulder, the other catches her elbow.

"The cameras work, but there are no microphones in here," she tells him.

"Then why are you whispering?" Tommy asks. His eyes are only _slowly_ adjusting to the low light, but he's pretty sure he sees a quick upturn of her lips.

"Habit," she says.

That's the moment he gives in and pulls her in close, wrapping his arms around her. For just a second, her whole body goes still, but then he feels her relax against him. "I don't like it when you're not here," Tommy tells her. "You're the only person in this place who actually tells me the truth."

"Don't get used to it," she says, leaning back in his arms.

Tommy's wise enough to know not to push for explanations to _that_ cryptic statement. "How's Oliver?" he asks. It's only because Tommy's hands are on her body that he notices how _tense_ she gets when he mentions Oliver's name.

"Alive," she says. "Stubborn. Stupid."

"Those are three good words to describe Oliver Queen." Then, because he can't help himself, he says, "I'm glad you didn't kill him."

"Someday I might," she tells him, but it lacks any animosity. She just sounds sad. "Someday _you_ might. Someday he might kill you. Someday he might kill me."

"I'd die before I killed him," Tommy says. "And I'd die before I let him kill you."

"I know," she says softly. "That's what I'm afraid of. I don't know that his side is _right_ , Thomas, but I don't know that he's _wrong_ either. This Division is not the one I signed up for, but I don't agree with Oliver's plan to destroy it completely."

"I do."

She's quiet for a moment, stunned, and then she asks, "You don't think Division could _ever_ be something good?"

"Maybe," Tommy says, feeling the conviction in every bone of his body. "Someday. If you were running it."

Shado nods. "Or if you were."

* * *

 

**BLACK BOX GUARDIAN IN CENTRAL CITY MISSED SCHEDULED CHECK-IN. MALCOLM LEFT TO DEAL WITH IT.**

_Do you have a name?_

**WILSON** **. NO FIRST NAME. BE CAREFUL.**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the length of time between updates, everyone. There were a few plot points that needed untangling before we got into the back half of this fic. They took a bit longer than expected.


	7. Revealing

Division keeps odd hours. Anytime after five in the morning, people are up and about, getting breakfast or running to briefings or packing up for missions. Recruits are up and in their first training session by six. Ten at night is ‘lights out’ for  recruits, so the place slows down considerably. Anytime before one in the morning sees agents trickling back in from assignments, and there are always some who don’t return until three or four, but those are fewer and far between.

What Tommy has figured out is that Division is quietest between midnight and four. It’s empty save for those few assets who slip silently through its halls, those who are appreciative of the quiet if only to chase away their own demons.

It’s four in the morning when Tommy slips into the gun range. Shado’s already there, but the fact that she’s cleaning her gun rather than firing it means the room is eerily absent of the noise Tommy’s come to expect.

When Shado sees him, she pulls out a small white device, sets it on the counter in front of her, and presses a button on it. Tommy immediately recognizes it as a piece of Allen’s tech, a scrambler that’s going to interfere with any bugs in the room.

“My father’s gone,” Tommy says.

“I know,” Shado replies. “He didn’t tell me he was leaving. Isabel claims not to know where he went, but that can’t possibly be true. Barry tells me he’s in Central City. He’s concerned.”

Tommy’s not surprised. Barry’s originally from Central City. While Tommy knows enough about the kid to know that Barry’s biological family consists solely of the father locked away in Iron Heights, he also knows there’s someone else. Several someones, if he’s interpreting a few of Barry’s vague statements correctly.

“There’s no reason for Malcolm to go after any of Barry’s people,” Tommy says, and he’s not sure if he believes that or if he simply _wants_ to believe that.

“No,” Shado says. “Even if he had a reason to take them out, he would send a Cleaner. They’re not worth him dirtying his own hands. It has to be a Black Box.”

Tommy keeps his hands busy loading his gun. “Which means there’s a Guardian there babysitting it.”

“I think that Guardian might be Slade Wilson.” Shado says as she fits a set of red earmuffs over her head.

That name is not completely unfamiliar to him, but Tommy slips on his own ear protection and waits until he’s emptied his magazine before he turns back. “Slade Wilson’s dead. My fa—Malcolm had him Canceled.”

“Malcolm lies,” says Shado. She’s popped one side of her ear muffs off of her ear so she can hear him. “I have no reason to believe in this instance that he would tell me the truth.”

Tommy’s very well aware of this. Malcolm lies all the time. Malcolm lies and deceives and twists the truth around to suit his own purposes.

“Wilson was before your time,” Shado says. “Back when Malcolm was hiring mercenaries and not training them all from scratch. He’s the one who brought Oliver in to Division—the one who found him wandering around on _Lian Yu_.”

Shado doesn’t often talk about her time in Division before Tommy arrived. He does know that she and Oliver were friends, and he only knows that because Oliver is at the top of Malcolm’s Most Wanted List.

“Why did Malcolm Cancel him?”

Shado takes a moment before she answers. “We recruited Barry Allen when he was fifteen. Did you know that? Picked him up for hacking into a police network looking for information on his mother’s case.

“Just like Felicity.”

“For Felicity it was her father, but yes. Same thing, essentially. There’s a reason they work for us and not Google.” She pauses, waits for him to shoot, then continues. “So this kid comes in. Scrawny little thing. Wanders down the stairs when he’s seven just in time to see a man slit his mother’s throat. The authorities get involved, and turns out that man is his father. You would think a trauma like that would just...break him apart, harden him. Instead, he’s soft, sweet, compassionate. And he still swears up and down that his dad didn’t kill his mom. It’s hard not to let your heart go out to a kid like that.”

Tommy stays quiet, patient, scared if he says a single word, she’ll stop telling him all these things he’s wanted to know for a long time.

“There was a time when Malcolm let me help them more, give them strength, give them purpose. I didn’t do as much physical training back then, that was Wilson’s job. We knew Allen was going to end up in the technical side of things; it was why we recruited him. But Wilson was rough on him, more than all the rest.”

“What happened?”

“I didn’t see it at the time, and you have to understand, I Imyself on seeing what people wanted, who people _were_. If I lost my ability to understand recruits and assets, what good was I to Malcolm? To the organization?” She rests the palm of her hand on the counter in front of her and turns to him for the first time in the entire conversation. “I was in love with Oliver at the time. I never told you that.”

“I guessed.” Tommy knows what being in love with Oliver Queen looks like, and it’s not hard to spot.

“I was in love with Oliver, Slade was in love with me, and I cared about the kid. Slade had a temper, and I knew it. When I rejected him, he struck at me where I was vulnerable. I knew Oliver could handle himself.”

Understanding dawns over Tommy slowly, filling in all the spaces of everything she’s not saying. “He went after Allen.”

“I recommended his Cancellation immediately, said he was a danger to the recruits. Malcolm agreed.”

“If he agreed with you, why do you think Wilson is still alive?”

“You know as well as I do that Malcom’s not the type to waste resources. Barry says he heard the name Wilson in the same conversation that revealed Malcolm is going to Central City. And really, who better to protect something Malcolm doesn’t want Division to know exists than a man Division believes no longer exists?”

Tommy can believe that. There’s not much that goes on inside these walls that Barry Allen _doesn’t_ know about. In many respects, he functions as Malcolm’s eyes and ears, but Tommy wonders if his father knows how careful Barry is with what he reports back. He’s _sure_ his father doesn’t know how close of an eye Barry keeps on Malcolm himself—or that while he capitulates to Malcolm out of fear, that doesn’t stop him from sharing information with Shado out of loyalty.

Still…

“What does this mean for us?”

“I don’t know. But a Black Box Guardian missed a check-in around the same time that Oliver Queen is vowing to take down Division by whatever means necessary. Going after a Black Box is a surefire way to take Division down.”

“What’s Oliver going to do if he gets his hands on one?”

Shado shakes her head. “I don’t know the answer to that. Hopefully something smart.”

They stare at each other for a few more seconds. There are so many more things Tommy wants to ask, so many more things he’s dying to know. But Shado clicks off the digital scrambler and slides it into her jacket pocket.

Tommy bites his tongue as she walks away.

* * *

Oliver leaves for Central City immediately upon receiving Felicity's message. She might not have a first name for the Wilson that Malcolm is going to see, but Oliver does: Slade. There's nothing good about Slade Wilson missing a scheduled check in with Malcolm Merlyn. Nothing.

He still remembers going to see Barry Allen in the infirmary. Still remembers the kid’s split lip and the bruises spread out across his face and neck.

And those were just the injuries Oliver could _see_.

Oliver can still hear Slade screaming threats as two Division guards hauled him away for Cancellation. Shado stood very still as she watched him go, arms folded across her chest.

Oliver recalls her quiet, “Good riddance,” as the elevator doors closed in front of Slade.  

It shouldn’t surprise him that Malcolm lied. He was never one to waste resources, not when they could still be put to use. He got Slade away from Barry and away from Shado and called that good enough.

Oliver feels the smallest amount of smug satisfaction knowing that decision came back to bite Merlyn in the ass.

Either someone else is after the Black Box and that caused Wilson to go dark, or he’s gone rogue and plans to sell the box to the highest bidder. Oliver wishes he had Felicity here to help figure it out. She has more of a head for putting puzzle pieces together. The woman hates mysteries as much as she hates kangaroos.

On the way there, he sends Felicity an encoded message: **CAN YOU FIND OUT WHERE IN CENTRAL CITY MALCOLM IS?**

She still hasn’t replied by the time he arrives. He tries not to let her silence sink in his stomach. He knows how to find who he’s looking for without her and her intelligence gathering skills. His way just involves breaking more kneecaps. It also includes the possibility of word traveling to Malcolm that he’s in Central City, but there’s not much Oliver can do about that.

Deciding that Wilson got anxious to move up his payday, Oliver starts checking off names of people and organizations who would be interested in getting their hands on a Black Box who could easily afford the high price Slade will be charging. The list isn’t long. Division has enemies, yes, but the list enemies with deep enough pocketbooks is short. It’s all about finding out which organizations are currently operating in Central City and then applying the right amount of pressure in the right places.

As it turns out, he doesn’t have to resort to those options, because by the time he hits downtown Central City, Felicity’s gotten back to him. She doesn’t have a current location on Malcolm, but what she has managed to acquire is Slade’s tracker history. Most of it is innocuous: an apartment where he was staying, a bank, a grocery store, and several sports bars.

Oliver decides to swing by Slade’s apartment first, just to check the place out. He parks a few blocks away, slips on a pair of sunglasses, and keeps his baseball cap pulled down low. Any Division asset who’s paying attention will still easily spot him, but it’s a risk he needs to take.

Breaking into the apartment is easy, and Oliver makes a note of the toothpick that falls to the floor as he pushes the door open. Either Division hasn’t hit this place yet, or one of their agents was observant enough to put the marker back where they found it so as not to alert Slade.

The apartment is sparse. There are only a few condiments in the fridge, no decorations on the walls, and only a little furniture—a chair and a table.

There’s a stack of mail on the kitchen counter, and Oliver rifles through advertisements and junk mail until he finds a bank statement and a phone bill. He pockets them both.

Underneath the phone bill is a sketch that makes Oliver’s breath catch in his throat. The drawing is of Shado. It’s in pencil, rough around the edges, but unmistakably her. A great deal of attention has been paid to her eyes, which are soft and sad in this depiction.

Oliver longs to crumple it up, take away even this small expression of remembrance from Wilson. He doesn’t deserve to remember her face.

Wrapping his hand into a tight fist, Oliver leaves it be.

Searching the bedroom reveals nothing, but Oliver finds a black case filled with syringes and bottles of a yellowish liquid in the bathroom. The label on the side of the bottles reads: _Mirakuru_. He slips the case into his jacket.

The rest of the apartment turns up nothing, and Oliver wishes again that Felicity was with him.  He’s leaving the bedroom when he hears the sound of someone else entering the apartment and he’s forced to duck back inside so as not to be spotted. He draws his gun, keeping his finger off of the trigger,

Holding his breath, Oliver waits, listening, watching. Slowly, the door to the bedroom starts to swing open, and Oliver raises his Glock. A split second later a hand closes around his wrist and _twists_. Oliver catches a flash of black hair as he leans back to prevent a boot from colliding with his face and strikes out at his attacker.

For a few seconds, they struggle, and the scuffle ends with a knife at Oliver’s throat. Now that he can clearly see her face, he recognizes the woman immediately.

“I do not wish to kill you, Queen,” Nyssa al Ghul says. “But I will if you force my hand. Where is the Black Box?”

Oliver ignores the question. “What are you doing here?”

“Same as you, I would imagine. When a Division Guardian goes off the rails and tries to sell one of the legendary Black Boxes, it doesn’t take long before the sharks start circling.”

“Were you his payday?” Oliver asks.

“I was one of them. He had multiple bidders lined up.”

“And you lost?” He doesn’t mean to sound incredulous, but given the fortune she has access to and the value of the box itself, Oliver finds that incredibly hard to believe.

“We were supposed to make the exchange last night, and the vermin attempted to double cross me. Now I would have his box as well as his head.”

There’s a sound in the apartment below them. It’s not incredibly loud, but it’s distinct enough that for just a moment, Nyssa takes her full attention off of Oliver.

Taking advantage of her distraction, Oliver knocks the knife out of her hands, grabs her wrists and _shoves_. He topples forward, and she falls backwards against the bed. They struggle on the mattress for a few seconds: her knee slams into his stomach, she shoves him over onto his back, but he uses her momentum against her and sends her flying off the bed. Just as she’s scrambling to her feet, Oliver rolls off the other side of the bed and lands _hard_ on the floor. He winces. Not even a second later he turns his head to see a knife embedded in the wall behind him.

Oliver spies the Glock he dropped earlier and reaches for it. They both rise to their feet at the same time, handguns trained on each other.

“Leave this place,” Nyssa says, stepping back towards the door and backing away from Oliver. “You and I have no quarrel if you simply stay out of my way. The box will be presented to my father; Malcolm will cease to have leverage over Oversight; the Demon’s Head will return to his rightful place as an Overseer of Division; and The Magician will be locked in a cage for the rest of his days. He will finally pay for the destruction his Undertaking has wrought.”

And then she’s gone.

Oliver runs after her, but he must make a wrong turn in the hallway, because he can’t find her.

He curses four times in three different languages. The problem with what she’s suggesting is that Oliver doesn’t want Oversight running Division again any more than he wants Malcolm running it. Replacing one monster with another isn’t going to change anything in the long run.

Oliver needs to keep that box away from Nyssa. Even if that means destroying it.

* * *

 

It starts raining an hour after the sun goes down. Oliver tugs the brim of his baseball cap down just a little lower as he circles the building, looking for any signs of Wilson or Division.

Or Nyssa al Ghul, because this particular operation needed more unexpected complications.

Felicity had just enough uninterrupted time in the computer lab earlier to set up a trace on Wilson’s phone. Oliver’s tracked the signal here, a warehouse by the docks. From what Felicity’s said, it doesn’t sound to Oliver like Malcolm has brought a tactical team with him. That’s good news, in as far as it means Oliver’s not going to end up dealing with a swarm of Division agents. It will mean that Malcolm likely has a bodyguard with him. Someone highly trained to watch his back, keep him alive. That’s the person Oliver is going to have to worry about.

Using one of Felicity’s tricks, Oliver pulls up infrared satellite of the area on his tablet and starts counting bodies. There are three in the building, all on the first floor. Two are close together, and one is off on his own. The perimeter is clear, and it’s oh-so-tempting to just rush in there—put a bullet in Malcolm’s head and throw his box in the river and then cut Slade Wilson up into tiny pieces.

But Oliver waits the time it takes to get ears inside the building, waits to figure out a little more of what’s going on. The first thing he hears is the sound of a punch landing.

His whole body tenses, and he has to force himself to calm down, to breathe. If Slade and Malcolm are both inside, then something would be very wrong if they _weren’t_ coming to blows.

“You took something of mine,” Malcolm is saying, “—something very, very valuable, and you tried to sell it to my enemies.”

The next voice is Slade’s. It’s muffled and rough, but Oliver can make out the words: “Screw you.”

“Hit him again,” Malcolm says. “You are going to give me the names of your buyers, Mr. Wilson.”

“You kill me—” Slade’s voice again—“And that information dies with me. You’re better off accepting my terms.”

“You’re in no position to negotiate, Mr. Wilson. I will let you keep your _life_ ,” Malcolm says. “That is my final offer. Believe me when I tell you that is more than generous, given your recent actions. What’s on this box is priceless.”

Oliver’s ears perk up. The box is there. Inside. With them.

He hears another blow land.

“Names,” Malcolm demands. “Now.”

Oliver waits; his breath held. He wants the box. He needs the box. And it’s _so close._

“This isn’t going to work,” a third voice interjects, “You should have just let me kill him.”

Oliver feels his blood run cold. He knows that voice, knows it very, _very_ well. It makes a sick amount of sense that Merlyn would choose Floyd Lawton as his private bodyguard for off-the-books excursions. The only person Lawton is loyal to is the one cutting him his check. Malcolm’s always had the ability to cut him a large one. Besides, Malcolm’s also always been fond of working with people whose buttons he knows how to press. In his mind, Oliver knows, money is a useful weakness for a person to have.

At least, it is until they decide they’re not getting paid enough. Then the only thing keeping them loyal is the size of the gun pointed at their head and how scared they are of retribution.

Slade Wilson has nothing left to lose, and Malcolm doesn’t scare him.

Malcolm scares Lawton though, and he supplies his paycheck. So far that’s been enough to keep the assassin loyal.  

Oliver’s earlier sweep of the perimeter revealed two ground entrances to the building, in addition to three overhead doors, but Oliver’s never been one to limit his entrances and exits to things like doors. There’s a reason Oliver was one of Division’s best. It had less to do with his marksmanship skills and more to do with his ability to think on his feet.

Oliver’s never met a situation for which he hasn’t been able to formulate some kind of plan. Granted, many of those plans should have ended in his death. He’s just been cursed with some sick ability to live through situations no man really has a right to.

Really, then, what’s one more?

The window is on what should be the second story, but since there is no second floor, Oliver is forced to free climb up one side of the wall and down the other while trying not to make a sound. His feet hit the floor, and he’s immediately grateful that there’s a large sailboat between him and the room’s occupants. Peering around the boat, Oliver sees Merlyn and Lawton standing in front of Slade.

“Your greed disgusts me,” Oliver hears Malcolm say. Wilson is tied to a wooden chair. He’s the only person looking in Oliver’s direction; Oliver sees the corner of his mouth tug up in a grin.

Damn it. The bastard saw him and saw a diversion. Oliver would much rather Slade not make it out of this encounter with his heart still beating.

Moving quickly and quietly, Oliver manages to slip behind Malcolm and press the barrel of a gun to the back of his head. The safety is off. His finger is already on the trigger.

Malcolm is a thing that he fully intends to destroy.

“Drop the gun,” he tells Lawton, “Or I kill your paycheck.”

Slade laughs, a low, throaty chuckle that makes Oliver’s skin crawl. “Nice to know that you’re still a complete idiot, Queen.”

“If you kill me, Oliver,” Malcolm says evenly, “You have no idea the amount of pain and suffering you will bring down on the ones you love. My death doesn’t solve your problems; it multiplies them.”

“Gun.” Oliver glances between the three men. There are too many people to keep an eye on; there are too many ways this could go all wrong in a second. “Now. Hands up.”

Lawton shrugs and does as Oliver tells him.

“Getting the box isn’t going to solve anything, Oliver.” Malcolm steps forward, away from the gun.

“Don’t—” Oliver says.

Keeping his hands in the air, Malcolm turns around to face Oliver. “There are five more out there, and I promise you I will take one of your loved one’s heads for every box that you so much as _touch_.”

“Give me the box,” Oliver says, every instinct in his body demanding that he just _squeeze_ the trigger. End this. “Now.”

It’s at that moment that all hell breaks loose.

There’s an explosion above them. Lawton dives for the gun; Oliver dives for cover. Slade throws himself backwards in order to break the chair he’s tied to into pieces. He’s the one who lunges for Malcolm, locking an arm around Merlyn’s neck and yanking him backwards.

Both Oliver and Lawton are on their feet in a second, guns trained on the two of them. Oliver indulges himself in the luxury of glancing around the room for a second, looking for anywhere the black box might be.

A fifth figure flies down from the new hole in the ceiling, and Oliver curses.

Nyssa.

Fantastic.

She lands directly in front of Malcolm and Slade, and as she lifts her blade to press the edge against Malcolm’s throat, Slade lets go. He shoves Merlyn forward and bolts. Oliver doesn’t even contemplate going after him. The box is the priority.

“I will slit his throat if either of you take a step,” Nyssa says. “Give me the box.”

Malcolm smiles. “I can’t do that.”

His eyes flick from her to Lawton. It’s a tiny thing, barely noticeable, but Malcolm’s not looking at Lawton’s gun or his eyes. He’s looking at his waist.

Floyd Lawton is the one carrying the box.

Oliver moves quickly. Divesting Lawton of his weapon is easy, getting the box out of his back pocket is difficult because by the time they’ve started struggling, Nyssa has figured out what Oliver is after.

He pries the box from Lawton, but Nyssa’s right there and plucking it from his fingers. Oliver’s lost track of Malcolm, but it doesn’t matter because what he needs is with Nyssa. He goes running after her and gunfire follows him. He ducks off to one side, so the boat is between him and the people shooting.

Nyssa’s still running. He can see the black box clutched tightly in her hand—no time to conceal it. Oliver lifts his Glock, aims, and fires.

He’s an excellent shot. The box clatters to the floor, but Nyssa keeps moving. She ducks behind a wheeled metal cabinet. It doesn’t provide her cover from Oliver, but it will stop her from getting hit by Malcolm and Lawton’s bullets.  

Oliver empties three rounds into the box on the ground, but he’s prevented from doing any more damage because at that moment he hears helicopters.

The bastard called in a Division tactical team. He needs to get out of here, and he needs to get out now.

Nyssa hears them as well, because she gives up on the box and reaches up to press her palm against the button that raises the overhead door. It’s only risen about a food and a half before she drops to the ground and rolls underneath it.

Racing after her, Oliver drops and rolls in order to follow her through the same door.

When he rises to his feet, a glace to his left and then his right reveals that Nyssa is long gone. The edge of the dock is right in front of him. Footsteps are getting closer. He can practically feel the Division agents closing in on him. With a grimace, he jumps. He can hear the sounds of gunfire above him as he falls.

Oliver hits the water and swims.

* * *

 

During her brief time inside Division, Felicity has never seen Malcolm call together the whole of Division—every single available asset—into Operations. The fact that he’s done so now, that she’s currently standing in the corner of Operations, with literally every member of Division personnel, fills Felicity with an overwhelming dread. Nothing about this is good.

The energy in the room is charged, electric. Everyone present seems to know that this is either something incredibly good or incredibly bad.

It’s clearly a game changer.

With every eye fixed on him, Malcolm Merlyn stands a the front of the room, straightens his tie, and says: “Oliver Queen is dead.”

Felicity's stomach sinks like lead. When she started this, she was so sure that she was going to be the one who died. She was the one going into the lion's den. She would die, and Oliver would live, but maybe, just maybe, she would live long enough to make sure that he was free at the end of it. And then—

She stops herself. _No, he's not dead._

There's no reason to take Malcolm's word in this circumstance. He has a million reasons to lie. For right now, until she can know for sure, Felicity needs to believe he’s lying. It’s the only way she’s going to survive.

Because if Oliver’s gone, that means she’s trapped inside Division with no true allies, no true friends. And no way of escape.

She glances at Tommy, expecting to see some kind of reaction on his face, but there’s nothing. His eyes are fixed on his father, on Malcolm, and his hands are behind his back. It’s odd to her, his lack of reaction.

She wonders if he believes what his father is saying. She wonders if he believes that Oliver is dead.

Next, she looks to Barry, whose own distress seems to have prevented him from noticing hers. He appears confused and hurt and more than a little lost. Felicity reaches for his hand. When her fingers brush against his skin, he jumps slightly. There are tears in his eyes as he turns to look at her.

Quickly, Felicity makes a decision. She steps in front of him and slides her arms around his waist, holding on tightly, her cheek against his chest. He sort of sinks into her, his chin resting on the top of her head as he wraps his arms around her. They’re both shaking.

For a moment, she feels a pin-prick of guilt, that she’s using him to hide her own feelings, her own reaction. It’s forgotten as soon as Barry sighs into her shoulder and whispers, “Thank you.”

Malcolm is still talking, but Felicity can’t be bothered to care. She hasn’t been hugged—hasn’t been _held_ —in ages. Not since that last night with Oliver. It’s nice.

They step away from each other simultaneously, right as Malcolm dismisses everyone. The buzz of conversation fills the room. Barry’s hands are still on Felicity’s shoulders, and she finds herself lingering in his space, trying to keep herself hidden from the room of recruits and agents and analysts whose eyes are no longer intently focused on Malcolm.

“C’mon,” Barry says. His fingers travel down her arm to cup her elbow. “We’ve got work to do.”

“What do you mean we have work to do?” Felicity asks, once they’re in the hallway and they’re both walking away from Operations. She feels almost painfully numb, like there’s an ache in her heart she can neither scream nor cry about. She needs to reach out to Oliver, needs to know that he’s alive, that he made it.

She needs to know that Malcolm is lying.

“Oliver went after one of Malcolm’s Black Boxes,” Barry says. “Malcolm’s concerned about their security. I need you to help me update the encryption software.”

“What’s a Black Box?” she asks, since she’s relatively certain she’s not supposed to already know what those are.

“It’s basically an insurance policy. They contain details on missions, assets, every off-books job Division has contracted with our government. And other governments. And other agencies. And anyone with a deep enough pocketbook.”

“And Oliver Queen got to one?”

“He is—well, he _was_ —one of Division’s best.”

“You knew him well?”

“I saved his life more than once,” Barry says. “Of course, he also saved mine. Back before he went rogue. He wasn’t grumpy, but not really happy either, always…”

“Tormented?” As soon as she says it, Felicity wishes she could take the word back. She’s not supposed to know Oliver. She’s not supposed to care that he died, and she’s not supposed to understand facets of his personality that aren’t inherently obvious.

Except Barry doesn’t seem to notice. “Yeah. Tormented.”

“I bet he wasn’t with you.”

Barry tips his head to the side. “What—what do you mean?”

“It’s just,” she catches herself in a smile and makes it stop. “It’s hard to be sad around you.”

He gives her that half-grin she’s gotten used to. “Thanks, Felicity.”

They reach Tech Ops, and Barry immediately heads for his desk. He scans his thumbprint to unlock one of the drawers, reaches in and pulls out a flat black box, about five inches wide and seven inches long.  

There are three bullets embedded in the cover.

“Let me guess,” Felicity says. “Somebody spilled a latte on it?

“Something like that,” he says. “We have to strip all the data off of it, repair all the damaged code, upload all the data onto a new box, and upgrade the dead man’s switch. Then we’ll do it again with the other five boxes.”

“The dead man’s switch?”

“Yep,” Barry says. “Malcolm’s got them rigged. If his heart ever stops, the Guardians are supposed to release all the information. Burn this place down and take Oversight down with it.”

“Oversight?”

“Malcolm’s got to answer to somebody,” Barry says. “But he wants to see if we can make the upload more direct, cut out the need for a Guardian to do anything other than babysit them.”

“Why?”

Barry shrugs. “Whatever happened with this box has him scared. I don’t know what Oliver Queen did or threatened to do, but it has Malcolm anxious to tighten up security.”

“Oliver’s gone,” Felicity says, because she needs to pretend to believe it.

“I don’t think that matters to Malcolm,” Barry tells her. “Oliver revealed a gap in security. We need to fix it.”

“Guess we need to get started then.” Felicity cracks her knuckles and takes a seat in the chair she’s actually starting to think of as _hers_.

Barry takes a seat in the matching chair.. “You want the hardware or the software?”

“Hardware,” Felicity says, her hands itching to get a hold on one of those boxes to pull it apart. “You’ll have more fun with the software.”

He grins at her. “You know me so well.”

* * *

There is nowhere to go inside Division that provides any actual privacy. There are places, Tommy knows, where he can go and not be heard, not be seen by cameras, but it’s suspicious for him to stay there too long.

Assets carve out places for themselves by figuring out schedules, discovering when certain locations are empty or mostly empty. The computer lab, the lunch room, the gun range, whatever place inside Division makes them feel the most safe or secure. All those places are still monitored, however, and while the assembly inside Operations ensured that they’re currently empty, Tommy knows that won’t last for long. That group will scatter, and empty rooms will fill with people.

His quarters are an option, but those are monitored. Malcolm will be watching, looking for Tommy’s reaction to Oliver’s death, looking for weakness to exploit.

Tommy can’t afford to give that to him, but he also can’t afford to put himself on lockdown, to bury everything inside and deal with it later. That just makes his own heart a timebomb.

He strides through Division’s hallways aimlessly, not sure of his destination, but knowing that he needs to _pick one_ and stick with it. Go somewhere, do something, and then figure out how to get himself somewhere he can _breathe_.

Turning a corner, Tommy abruptly stops walking when he sees Shado standing in the middle of the hallway. Her expression is blank, impassive, but she holds up a set of car keys, letting them dangle from her first finger.

“C’mon,” she says. “Let’s get away from this place.”

Tommy follows without saying a word.

They drive for over an hour. After a little while, Tommy stops paying attention to where they’re going. He trusts Shado. Probably too much, given the circumstances.

He comes back to the present when he realizes they’ve stopped and Shado’s shut the car off. She’s brought them to a park. It looks to be mostly empty this afternoon, probably a combination of the cool wind and the threat of rain.

“Come,” she says, climbing out of the car. He follows her.

“It would be foolish to assume,” Shado says softly, “That Malcolm has neglected to put listening devices in all Division vehicles.”

Tommy wouldn’t either. His father practices constant vigilance and a great deal of paranoia.

Silently, they walk together until they are a good distance away from the car.

Tommy takes a ragged breath. There’s a physical ache in his chest that’s making it hard to breathe. It’s strange how recognizable it is, how familiar. It’s like being transported back in time to the day he found out the Gambit went down. The time he realized Oliver wasn’t ever coming back.

“Was he…as far as you know, was Malcolm telling the truth?” _Malcolm lies,_ he reminds himself. _Malcolm lies all the time._

“He seems convinced,” Shado says. “Oliver jumped into the water. Malcolm hit him on the way down. Our teams secured the perimeter, searched he area, and didn’t find him. It’s very possible he’s gone.”

The fact that his father—that _Malcolm_ —told Shado this, but chose to let Tommy hear the news in front of all of Division, means that Malcolm was definitely looking to gauge Tommy’s reaction. He was seeking to determine his loyalty.

Tommy’s sure this trip is going to confirm Malcolm’s suspicious—and whether those are about his relationship with Shado, or his loyalty to Division, Tommy’s not certain—

“Hey,” Shado says, grabbing his hand. “Where’s your head?”

Six years in the past, lightly buzzed but sobering fast when the words, “She lost the baby,” slipped from Oliver’s mouth. Terrified when the news broke the story that the Queen’s Gambit sank. Angry at Oliver for cheating on Laurel, and angry at life for making such sadness appear in his friend’s eyes.

“I knew he wasn’t dead,” Tommy says. “Two years after the Queen’s Gambit sank,  I was still searching for him, for even the smallest hint of a sign that he was alive. I ended up in Hong Kong.”

“I know.”

“How do you—” He stops.

Malcolm. Of course.

“He sent me to keep an eye on Oliver,” Shado says. “Make sure he followed through with the plan.”

“The plan…” Tommy remembers the Hong Kong trip, remembers his kidnapping, remembers— _Oliver Queen is dead_ —and his stomach twists. “That was orchestrated by Malcolm? The person in the room with me, that was—”

“Oliver,” she finishes. “Yes. He was...non-compliant at the time. You were searching for him. He slipped up intentionally. Gave you bread crumbs. Malcolm told him he needed to clean up his own mess, make sure you believed he was dead, or else he would take care of the matter himself.”

“How?” Tommy asks, even though he’s relatively certain there are only two possible answers.

“Whether he was going to bring you into the organization or have you taken out of the equation entirely, I don’t know, Thomas.”

Tommy grits his teeth. There’s this guilt that’s been eating away at him ever since he found out that Oliver had been alive and inside Division for the past five years, and Tommy had given up because some kidnapper had _lied_ and he had believed him.

That the kidnapper was _Oliver_ and he was lying to protect him is a fact that removes a weight he hadn’t realized he was carrying. Oliver knew. Oliver knew he had searched. Oliver knew he hadn’t given up.

And now— _again_ —Oliver is gone.

“I never even saw him,” Tommy says. “I’ve known he’s been alive for over a year, and I’ve never even seen him. Because he’s been trying to stop my father and I’ve been here. Doing nothing.”

Shado takes his hand in hers, draws her fingertips softly across his wrists, down the center of his palm. It’s calming. Centering. Grounding. “You have been trying to stay alive; you have been trying to keep people you love alive. There is no shame in that, Thomas.”

He doesn’t know how she always knows exactly how to reorient him, but she does. “My father killed him. My father will kill all of them.”

“I know, and that’s why we have to do this now,” she says. “We have to finish this for them, for all of them. We need to take Division back.”

He knows she’s right. He does. Oliver going rogue is just a symptom of the disease Division has become. Division is on the wrong path, and they need to stop it before it gets worse. There is no one else who can, and no one else who will.

For that to happen, Malcolm needs to die.

But the loss of Oliver is an all-consuming thing. It’s as if a black hole has opened up and swallowed him up and he’s falling, falling, falling, never to hit the ground. The world around him is impermanent, fleeting, unreal.

“It should have been me,” he tells Shado, and the words _break_ something inside him. They’re the catalyst that causes tears to fall, and before he knows it his knees buckle. She catches him in her arms and slowly lowers the both of them to the ground. Her fingers are gentle as they brush against against the back of his neck and soothingly trail down his spine.

He sucks in a gasping, sob of a breath and whispers, “It should have been me.”


	8. Losing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity goes on an undercover mission; Tommy attempts to cope with recent events.

Shado’s space inside Division is intentionally set-apart. She’s taken great pains to differentiate it from the rest of the facility. It’s carpeted. Comfy. Home-like, or at least, as close as Shado can get it to an atmosphere the majority of Division recruits associate with home.

Shado glances up as the door opens and Felicity Smoak steps inside.

Felicity looks uneasy. She stands right inside the doorway, wringing her hands. Shado catches a glimpse of dark green nail polish and smiles. The gift—technically a reward for good behavior, a carrot rather than a stick—was her idea. She remembers the chipped remains of a dark blue polish on Felicity’s nails the first day they met, quite a while after she’d been brought into Division.

It was a small trinket, and it’s _still_ a small trinket, but Shado knows how much small gestures piled one on top of the other build up into valuable loyalty.

And she needs loyalty for what is coming.

Not that she wants to _purchase_ it; she wants to earn it. This, she knows, is Malcolm’s problem. He sees manipulations, pieces on a chess board, pawns to play with and control.

Shado sees people to help; she always has.

“Sit down,” she tells Felicity, gesturing to the sofa across from Shado’s usual armchair. “I made coffee.”

Felicity raises her eyebrows.

“I prefer tea, it’s true,” Shado says, setting a tray down on the low table between them.“But I don’t think tea is your beverage of choice, and I know they don’t let the recruits have coffee. It’s a perk of graduation. I imagine you miss it.”

“So much,” Felicity says, taking the cup gratefully.

Shado sits down and waits to take a sip of her tea until Felicity has tried her coffee. Felicity sighs and relaxes visibly, and Shado smiles. “I expect you’re concerned about why I’ve called you here. You don’t need to be.”

“I’m just not usually…” Felicity pauses to bit her lip. “I’m not treated like the other recruits. I guess I thought that also meant I got to skip out on the counseling, or whatever.”

“You think Barry and I don’t talk?”

Felicity shrugs.

“I make Barry milkshakes,” Shado says, and she’s pleased when Felicity looks up at her in surprise, an actual smile on her lips. She likes the kid. Good. She’ll like that Shado cares about him as well.

“In truth,” Shado tells her. “This conversation has been long overdue. Tommy’s taken care of some of that responsibility for me, but at the end of the day, I’m still the one who has to declare you mentally fit for field work.”

“Field work?”

Shado notes the way Felicity’s mouth falls open, the way her hands tighten around the coffee cup. “There’s an operation that requires someone with your expertise.”

“The last time I went into the field—it wasn’t even the field, really, but it’s the same difference—it didn’t exactly end well.”

“That’s why we’re talking now. I don’t want to send you off blindly. This isn’t a test. It’s not a trick and it’s not a game. I give you my word. I will never lie to you, Felicity.”

Felicity tips her head to one side, and Shado watches as she processes what she’s just been told. After a moment, Felicity says, “Why should I believe you?”

There’s no bite to it, no malice, just curiosity. Shado can respect that. “I have given you few reasons to, and unfortunately, trust is something earned slowly and shattered quickly. You should know that your trust is _very_ important to me, Felicity. If you give it to me, I will not shatter it.”

“What’s the operation?”

Shado smiles and hands over a computer tablet. “The picture on the screen is Ray Palmer. He’s the CEO of Palmer Technologies. We have reason to believe that his company is in the process of creating something very dangerous.”

“Something like what?” Felicity asks.

“When you and Barry hacked into PT’s mainframe last week, we found it listed among his DOD Contracts. It’s called Project Lilac. We’re concerned that he’s not just planning on selling it to the defence department.”

“So where do I come in?” Felicity asks.

“Palmer Technologies has a very important Gala coming up. If Mr. Palmer sticks to his usual pattern, he’ll spend thousands to ensure that his arm candy for the evening is to his liking.”

“And I’m—” Felicity presses her lips together, but doesn’t take her eyes off of the tablet’s screen. “I’m someone that’s to his liking?”

“He was given a catalogue of models—all Division agents—and he picked you. It was a stroke of luck, really.” The very idea turns Shado’s stomach, but ultimately it wasn’t her call. “We think he was mostly attracted to the educational background we’ve fabricated. MIT, class of ‘09.”

Felicity leans ever-so-slightly backwards, creating the tiniest bit of distance. “I don’t feel very lucky.”

“You want to prove your worth to this organization—to Malcolm, to Tommy, to me. This is a very good way to do that. We need you to provide a distraction for Mr. Palmer while a secondary asset takes care of destroying the weapon.”

Felicity sets the tablet down on the coffee table between them. "Who is the secondary asset?”

“That hasn’t been decided yet.” Shado stands to her feet. “What we _do_ need to decide today, is what you would feel comfortable wearing.”

“I-I get to pick?” Felicity asks.

“You do.” Shado moves to the rack of dresses she’s assembled. Felicity likes bold color, and bold colors like her. For this operation to work, Felicity needs to be comfortable. She needs to _feel_ comfortable, pretty, desirable. If that means letting her pick her dress, Shado’s going to let her pick her dress.

It’s an excellent selection. There are some stunning blue pieces, one absolutely divine gold one, and one very teasing black number with cutouts everywhere. Shado hopes Felicity can find something she likes.

Felicity looks through the dresses slowly. She skims her fingers along the length of each dress as she examines it, rubbing the material between her fingers.

“Would you like to choose one or two to try on?” Shado asks. She gestures to a changing screen behind the rack of dresses. “You can change back there.”

Felicity takes the short gold dress, a floor-length pink one, and the black one. Shado wanders to the other side of the room to look at the selection of accessories she’s pulled together. “Palmer is tall, so we’re going to want you in heels, but how high of a heel you want is up to you. You’re still going to need to be able to move easily, just in case something goes wrong.”

Felicity steps out from behind the screen wearing the pink dress. “How likely is it that something will go wrong?”

“Not likely at all,” Shado says. She passes Felicity a pair of matching shoes. “This is fairly run-of-the-mill, and you’ll have the full strength of Division behind you.” She gently brushes her fingers against Felicity’s wrist. “You won’t be on your own this time. I promise.”

Shado doesn’t think Felicity believes her; she doesn’t blame her.

“Can I ask you a question?” Felicity says after the shoes are on her feet.

“Of course,” Shado replies.

“Why are you here? You’re nothing like this place.”

Shado falters for a second, unsure how to answer that. “Maybe I’m not like this place,” she says finally. “But maybe that’s also _exactly_ why I’m here.”

Felicity’s fingers clench against the material near her thigh. She stands, silent, studying Shado carefully.

It occurs to Shado then that it just might be possible to dangerously underestimate Felicity Smoak. Clearing her throat, Shado says: “Try the black one next.”

* * *

It’s Division’s early silent hours when Tommy returns from a last minute Raven Mission. Malcolm’s choice asset fell through—sprained ankle and a black eye from a prior operation—so he pulled in Tommy as a pinch-hitter. Not that Tommy is complaining. Getting out of Division for however brief a time is preferable at this point.

It just makes coming back into Division’s arms feel like an even deeper descent into hell.

When the elevator doors open into a nearly-deserted Operations room, Shado is waiting for him. Her arms are crossed over her chest, and her lips are down-turned ever so slightly.

It’s her eyes that are sad.

“You’re disappointed in me,” Tommy says, moving right past her.

“You could have told him no,” Shado tells him, jogging just a bit to catch up with him as he strides past several computer stations and makes the turn into the adjoining hallway. “He gave you the option.”

“I needed to get out of here.”

“I _got_ you out of here. This was unnecessary, Thomas.”

Her use of his full name makes the back of his neck prickle. He turns sharply on his heel, and she’s so close behind him she jerks to a stop. Her lips are pressed in a thin line.

“You got me _in_ here.”

Shado flinches.

Tommy moves closer into her space, but she won’t step back. “Did you think I didn’t know that?”

She closes her eyes for a beat, lips trembling. “Division is all about saving lives that the system was just going to throw away. I merely saved a life that _your father_ was going to throw away.”

“Well,” Tommy tells her bitterly. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Tommy,” she whispers, reaching out. Her hand freezes a breath from his chest.

“At least he’s getting some good use out of me. Not too many other assets want to get down on their knees.” She opens her mouth to say something, but he cuts her off. “I’m going to go shower. I can still smell him on me.”

He tosses her a flash drive before he starts to walk away. “Here’s the information Malcolm was so desperate for.”

“The Lilac Operation is tomorrow,” Shado calls out after him. “Are you up for quarterbacking that?”

Tommy stops, but he doesn’t turn around. Lilac. That’s Palmer. That’s _Felicity_. “Yes.”

Shado is uncertain of his ability to handle a mission of this type right now, and he knows it.

“It’s in your city,” Shado reminds him. “With your girl.”

“Not my city,” Tommy tells her. “Certainly not my girl.”

“More yours than mine,” she says, and he’s not sure which one she means. He doesn’t take the time to ask. He keeps moving.

She doesn’t call out for him again.

The shower he takes doesn’t wash enough away, but he can’t smell his companion’s cologne anymore, so that’s something.

A quick glance at the clock tells him it’s nearly four—a mere six hours before he needs to meet with Felicity to go over the last few pertinent operation details—but he’s still got adrenaline humming in his veins, so he grabs his tablet and pulls up the file on Raymond Palmer.

He paces as he reads.

Dead wife. Multi-billion dollar tech company. Numerous degrees and patents and awards. Tommy files those descriptors away as _rich_ , _brilliant,_ and _lonely_.

Shado was likely right in thinking Palmer picked Felicity for her intellect. Which means he doesn’t need her to be suave or graceful or seductive—though that will help—he needs her to be genuine and smart and funny.

Which are all things that she is.

She’ll just also be nervous. He knows her well enough now to know this about her. He’ll need to stay calm, stay steady. She’ll take her cues from him, so he has to be unshakable.

Which means lots of time to prep.

Tommy turns his analysis to the covert parts of the mission. Sin will be going into the lab after Felicity helps her pass through the retina scan. Sin is going to destroy the prototype drone and all the blueprints. Felicity is going to keep Ray distracted and get his retinal scan. Barry can easily guide Sin out and in, with Tommy right there for support in case anything goes wrong.

But he’ll be the one walking Felicity through her part of the mission, so he and Barry are going to have to work together effectively for this all to go off without a hitch.

Tommy looks at the clock again.

A little over five hours until he has to meet with Felicity. He falls back onto his mattress and closes his eyes.

Except all his brain keeps doing is replaying the events of his evening in glorious technicolor, whether he wants it to or not.

It’s better than thinking about other things. It’s better than thinking about Oliver.

Everything is better than thinking about Oliver right now.

When he wakes, it’s from a fitful sleep that finally ends with the shrill sounds of his alarm clock. He splashes cold water on his face, manages to swallow down a few bites of a granola bar, and decides to find Barry before he finds Felicity.

Finding Barry is the same as finding Felicity these days anyway. Usually, the two of them are attached at the hip. Tommy’s not at all surprised to hear _both_ of their voices as he descends the staircase.

He stops to listen.

“—don't like it," Barry is saying.

"I don't like it _either_ ," Felicity agrees. "But what other choice do I have."

There's a pause, then Felicity again: "Have they ever made you?"

Silence.

"No," Barry stammers out. "They haven't. But you're really... and I'm not—pretty! I'm not as pretty as you are. You're really… I see why he picked you."

Another quiet moment. Tommy wonders what they look like. Are they standing? Sitting? He has this image in his head of them sitting side by side at their desks, working, carrying on this awkward excuse for a conversation while each staring at their screens, sneaking careful glances at the other.

"I'll be with you the whole time," Barry says. "You don't have to be nervous. Well, not _with_ you, but inside you—inside your _ear_. My voice. Inside your _ear_."

"Thank you," Felicity says, clearly cutting off any further descent. "That does help."

"And you'll have Tommy," Barry continues. "He does these all the time."

Another pause, and Tommy can't tell if this one is longer than the others or if it just _feels_ that way to him.

"He does?" Felicity asks, a higher-than-normal pitch to her voice. "I wouldn't have thought that."

"You didn't hear it from me then," Barry says, bless his heart.

Tommy decides that's as good enough a time as any to finish coming down the stairs and round the corner. He was right. They _were_ sitting at their desks. Barry's hand is on Felicity's knee, and Felicity has one of her hands resting over his.

They jump apart as soon as he makes his presence known.

"Felicity," Tommy says. He quickly clears his throat. "Let's talk. Barry, can you give us the room?"

Barry nods. "Come find me if any of these searches pan out," he tells Felicity.

Tommy waits until he hears Barry's footsteps reach the top of the stairs followed by the sound of the door shutting behind him. "Shado briefed you?" he asks Felicity.

Slowly, she nods as she stands to her feet. "She did."

"Good. This shouldn't be too terrible." He tries not to choke on the lie. "I'll be on the comms with you the whole time."

"I'm not _good_ at this, Tommy. Give me firewalls to crack or codes to write, but seduction?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," he cups her shoulders with his hands, ignoring the uncomfortable squelch in his stomach. "You're not _seducing_ anybody. You're maybe going to do a bit of harmless flirting while Sin gets what we’re after, but you won’t be doing anything _more_. We're not… we're not asking you to sleep with him, and if he does _anything_ that makes you uncomfortable, I will get you out. Understand me?"

Her eyebrows furrow, and she nods her head very, very slowly. "I understand."

"You give me the _word_ , and you are out of there, I don't care what my fath—Malcolm. I don't care what Malcolm says. I will not let him hurt you."

Shado wasn't around for his first Raven Operation. She was on an overseas mission, and Tommy's Op had been last minute, taking advantage of a target's sudden vulnerability.

No one was there to tell him they would get him out if he'd changed his mind. Not that Tommy had changed his mind. He hadn't quite understood the significance of what he was signed up for, but that hadn't stopped him from following through.

And _Felicity_.

He doesn't blame her for feeling out of her depth. He remembers that feeling well. It's not gonna go away anytime soon.

He watches as the worry slowly fades from Felicity’s face. He wonders if he’s really made her feel better, or if she’s pretending. Her ability to pretend is alarmingly good. Hopefully, that will protect her. 

Felicity keeps her arms wrapped around her midsection as she says, “Thank you.”

Tommy isn’t sure he deserves thanks for not being quite as much of a bastard as his father is, but he nods in silent acknowledgement anyway, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Let’s get you ready to go,” he says.

* * *

Ray Palmer’s limo arrives exactly at six forty-five.  Felicity has been ready and waiting in the lobby of her hotel since six fifteen. It’s done very little to calm her anxiousness. Keeping up a steady conversation with Barry on the comms unit is the only thing that keeps her sane during her half-hour wait.

She does not want to do this.

She especially does not want to do this without knowing that Oliver has her back. She hasn’t heard from him since Malcolm announced his death to Division. Nevertheless, she sent him all the details about this operation as soon as she could; he’s just wasn’t logged into the system at the time. Plus, _she’s_ been run ragged over the last week. When she wasn’t eating or sleeping, she was working on the Black Boxes with Barry, and when she wasn’t doing _that_ , she was with Shado prepping for this operation.

“I can’t do this,” she whispers, then shakes her head. “I _can_ do this; I can do this; I can do this.”

“You’re doing great,” Barry says. “And we’ll be with you the whole time. Promise.”

“Felicity,” Tommy says, and his tone is very businesslike. “He’s here.”

Her stomach rolls. Her throat goes dry. With a trembling hand, Felicity picks up the pair of sunglasses on the end table beside her, carefully unfolds them, and slides them on.“Stand up,” Tommy tells her. “Keep yourself relaxed. Calm. You can do this. When he gets close enough, step towards him and run a hand down his arm. Make eye contact. Let it linger. Keep touching him.”

Ray Palmer greets her with a smile on his face. It’s happy and goofy, and it makes Felicity’s stomach sort of _clench_.

“Breathe easy,” Tommy tells her. “Keep listening to me. Good.”

It’s Tommy’s voice that keeps her relaxed enough to smile, that keeps her hands from shaking as she touches Ray, and her gaze steady as she stares into his eyes.

“Hi,” he says appreciatively. “You are… _incredible_.”

“Duck your head.” Tommy’s words are quick and following them is almost instinct. “Glance back up. Play it coy.”

“I got you something,” Ray says, holding out a slim black box. “Just for the night. Turn around.”

Felicity doesn’t even get a chance to look at the necklace before he puts it on her, but it feels solid and heavy around her neck.

Less like jewelry, more like a leash and collar.

Ray puts a hand on her back as they walk to the limo.

“Put the glasses in your right hand,” Tommy says. “Behind your back. Loose grip. Pick up in three… two… one.”

Sin walks past them into the hotel. Felicity doesn’t take her eyes off of  Ray as the sunglasses slip through her fingers.

“Meghan,” Ray says. “Is that your real name?”

“Smile,” Tommy instructs through her earbud. “Laugh. Ask him if he really wants to know.”

She does.

“Not really,” Ray tells her, like they’re sharing a secret. He helps her into the vehicle and closes her door.

“Good,” Tommy says. “I’m going to get you through this, alright? Just keep listening to me.”

So she does. When they arrive at the gala and have to mingle, Tommy walks her around every verbal faux pas landmine. He suggests good questions for her to ask Ray, recommends good answers to give when Ray returns the favor, and talks just enough to make her feel like—even though she’s here and he’s in a van outside—he’s doing all this with her. She’s not alone.

The nice thing about the gold dress she picked is that her back is mostly covered. Ray’s hand frequently lands on the small of her back, but there’s a layer of material between his skin and hers.

Ray slips off to get her another drink, and Felicity hears Tommy exhale. “You’re doing really well, Felicity.”

“Thanks,” she says. “How’s Sin?”

“She’s inside,” Tommy says. “The glasses worked like a dream. You keep focusing on you.”

“Tommy,” Barry says suddenly, right as Ray comes back. “We’ve got a problem; Sin says it’s—”

The audio feed goes silent, and Felicity realizes Barry must have muted their side of the conversation. She doesn’t know if that makes it more distracting or less.

Ray passes her a champagne flute. “Everything okay?” he asks, at the same time Barry’s voice is back and saying: “Everything is okay. I’m still here.”

“Meghan?”

_What would Tommy tell her to say?_

“Everything’s fine,” she waves a hand dismissively. “I just, uh, got lost in thought for a second.”

“Just focus on Ray. I’ll tell you if anything changes.” Barry tells her.

Still grinning, Ray says, “Well, we should find our seats.”

“Right,” Felicity agrees, probably too quickly. “That would be good.”

His hand inches lower on her back than she would normally be comfortable with, but she feels helpless to stop him.

“Felicity,” Tommy says, and he sounds less collected than he did five minutes ago. “I need you to excuse yourself to go to the restroom, okay? Stay calm and casual. Touch his arm, and give it a light squeeze when you tell him you’ll be right back.”

She does.

“Not that I’m not grateful for the reprieve,” she says as soon as she steps out into the hall and heads for the bathroom. “But what’s _wrong_?”

“Just a small hiccup.” She can sense the stress in Tommy’s tone even as she double and triple checks that the restroom is empty. “Sin got to the prototype, but it looks like there’s a hard copy of the plans in Ray’s office. There’s probably data on his personal computer system as well.”

“So why can’t she get them? The glasses should still work, right?”

“It’s protected by higher security,” Barry supplies. “We’re not prepared to deal with it tonight.”

“Getting the prototype does _nothing_ if we can’t also get the plans, Felicity.”

She takes a deep breath. “What do you need me to do?”

“Get Ray to take you up to his office. Whatever it takes. Shado gave you a USB drive, right? You can use that to get the copy of the plans.”

“And what do I do with him once I’m up there? I can’t just steal the plans with him right there in the room with me.”

“Trust me,” Tommy says. “You can do this, Felicity. Just keep listening to me.”

Pausing with her hand on the door handle, Felicity takes one more moment to collect herself. “Just keep talking.”

“You got it.”

Felicity opens the bathroom door, her mind so set on how to get to Ray’s office that she’s not paying as much attention to her surroundings.

So when a hand clamps firmly over her mouth and a strong arm wraps around her waist and tugs her back, she flails for a moment. Her scream is muffled beneath the stranger’s hand, but she’s sure Tommy and Barry can hear it. The man spins her, pressing against her so her back is against the wall, and he’s looming over her. He’s wearing a mask, so she can’t see his face.

Adrenaline hits _hard_. Felicity draws her leg up to knee him between the legs, but he deflects it easily, the hand not over her mouth going to her ear to yank out her earbud. He drops it on the ground, kicks it a few feet down the hall, and says, “I’m not going to hurt you, Felicity.”

_Oliver_.

That she wants to cry with relief is something that should probably be attributed to just how frazzled her nerves have been during this whole operation and the fact that apparently a teeny-tiny part of her worried that he really truly _was_ dead.

“You scared me half to death,” she whispers harshly. “Was that _necessary_?”

“It’s better for both of us if Division doesn’t know I’m alive.”

“Glad about that, by the way—the whole part where you’re alive, that is,” Felicity says. “You got my message?”

He nods. “You’re right. Division can’t get their hands on this.”

“They don’t want to get their hands on it. They want to destroy it.”

“That’s what they _told_ you,” Oliver says.

“Yes,” Felicity says. “That’s what _Tommy_ told me.”

She can’t see his face through the mask, but she can see his _eyes_. And his eyes are telling her that what she just said _stung_. They only have a few seconds though. There’s no time for this.

“I have to go,” she tells him. “Something went wrong, and now I’m the one who has to get into Palmer’s office and destroy the blueprints.”

“You don’t have to do this.” He sounds worried.

“Yes. I do,” Felicity says. “Now tell me what my counter mission is.”

“Get the plans. I’ll find you after so you can pass them to me. Tell Division you destroyed them.”

She nods. She needs to go get her earbud back. She needs to tell Tommy she’s okay before he starts to worry. All she wants to do is stay right here with Oliver.

He cups her face with one hand, and the gaze he fixes on her is so concerned, so intense, that it steals her breath for a moment.

“I need to check in,” she whispers.

“Go,” Oliver says. “If anything happens—”

“I know,” Felicity says quickly. “You’ve got my back.”

She finds the earbud easily, slipping it into her ear. When she turns back to look at Oliver, he’s gone.

“Tommy?” Felicity says softly.

“Felicity?” It’s Barry who sounds so relieved. “Tommy, I’ve got Felicity.”

“Felicity? What the hell happened?” This time it _is_ Tommy. She can feel the irritation and anger and fear in his voice, but there’s no time to dwell on it.

“I tripped,” she answers quickly. “Lost the earbud temporarily. I’m so sorry.”

“Felicity, I know you’re nervous, but I need to know: can you finish this mission?”

“Yes,” she says firmly. “I can do this.”

“Good girl. Make your way back inside.”

Dinner is being served as Felicity slides back into her seat. As Tommy instructs her, she smiles at Ray, contributes to the table-wide conversation, and picks at her food.

“Alright, we need to move this along. Felicity, put your hand on his knee.”

“What?” she says, making it seem like she didn’t quite catch what Ray has just said. (In fairness, she didn’t, though that was Tommy’s fault.)

“Put your hand on his knee, Felicity. You don’t have to look at him while you do it, but you need to do it.”

She obeys, feeling more and more tangled in her own marionette strings.

“Alright. Wait for him to make eye contact with you. If he does, suggest getting out of there. If he _doesn’t_ , start inching your hand up his thigh.”

He doesn’t make eye contact. He keeps his gaze on the man to his left; Felicity can’t spare the concentration to follow their conversation.

She slides her hand no more than an inch up his thigh.

“Squeeze,” Tommy says, “Very lightly, keep it flirty. Repeat if he still doesn’t look at you.”

It takes her lightly running her nails up and down his thigh before Ray finally turns to look at her.

“We should get out of here,” she leans over to whisper to him after Tommy tells her what to say.

“Couldn’t agree more,” he replies.

He kisses her once they’re in his private elevator. His hands cup her face, and his body presses her against the back wall, keeping her in place. Keeping her immobile. Felicity doesn’t know if it’s the quick rise of the elevator car or his tongue in her mouth that makes her stomach flip uncomfortably.

She doesn’t so much kiss back as she does stand there and take it, closing her eyes and tipping her head a bit. She reaches up to take a hold of his wrists, but that’s more to casually keep his hands from wandering.

When the elevator stops, he pulls her out into the hallway and then kisses her against the wall for another minute.

“We need to hurry this up, Felicity.” Tommy’s voice in her ear is even more disconcerting when Ray’s mouth is on hers. “Get him to take you to his office.”

“Hey,” Felicity says to Ray when she can finally breathe again. “As much as I’m enjoying this, can we take it somewhere a little more private?”

“Draw one finger down his tie,” Tommy instructs.

She does, and Ray’s breath catches. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, just give me one minute.”

Felicity memorizes his PIN when he punches it in and watches carefully as he scans in an ID badge, as well as his thumbprint and retina. Hopefully with this much security on his office, Ray will be the type who feels comfortable not putting important things in a safe.

“Wow,” she says softly, as Ray ushers her inside. “This is _really something_.”

It’s not an act. The room is _large_ and there are at least three long tables absolutely covered with technological equipment.

“My actual office,” Ray tells her, “Is through that door. But it’s pretty dull. A couple of chairs and a couch and a desk. This—” he makes a grand sweeping gesture to the room— “ _This_ is where all the magic happens.”

“It does look magical,” Felicity says.

She thinks he might have kissed her again at that moment, but her eye is caught by a shiny piece of tech on the table in front of her, and Ray is suddenly talking a mile a minute about what it does. He’s distracted and excited, so Felicity starts looking around for anything that could be connected to the Lilac Project.

Maybe she can just sneak it out under his nose.

Ray’s prattling on about this propulsion device and the problems he’s having getting it to work, and Felicity forces herself to focus again on what he’s saying. Something about not enough power and a lack of precision.

He starts rubbing the backs of his fingers against her arm, and suddenly Felicity’s very convinced that there’s no real way to get out of here without finishing what she started.

A bubble of anxiety rises in her chest. But she reminds herself that Tommy wouldn’t have let her go up here if there wasn’t a plan for getting her out.

Oh, hell. She hopes _that_ isn’t his plan.

“Felicity?” Tommy again. “Do you see them?”

There’s an art stand and a flat filing cabinet. Felicity assumes that any hard copies in existence would be there. Ray also has a pretty decent computer set up, possibly with it’s own internal network, so if there are any electronic copies that must be where they are.

“Uh-huh,” she says slowly, to both Ray and Tommy.

“Alright, Felicity,” Tommy says. “I need you to get Ray out of the way. Tell him everything here is amazing, and ask if there’s any chance his real office has a fully-stocked bar?”

She has to frame the question with a coy smile and a touch to the back of his hand.

Ray winks at her. “Of course it does, babe. What can I get you?”

She draws a blank for a moment, thinking of red wine, but Tommy comes to her rescue. “Dry martini?”

He kisses her cheek. “Sure thing, sweetheart.”

“Tommy,” Felicity says under her breath as soon as Ray’s out the door. “What exactly is my exit here? Because I am treading water right now, and I hate feeling like I’m gonna drown.”

“Felicity, listen to me. I am working on it.” Tommy’s starting to sound as on-edge as she feels. “I will get you through this, okay?”

Nausea curls in her stomach. She doesn’t believe him.

Her brain kicks into overdrive. There are too many thoughts in her head, too many diverging right in front of her for her to focus on just _one_ , just the one she needs to get _out of this_.

And she doesn't want Tommy. She wants Oliver.

What would Oliver tell her to do?

Oliver would tell her to be smart. Oliver would tell her to use whatever was around her. Oliver would—

Felicity looks down at the gauntlet in her hand.

She’s more of a software gal, really. Better at code than at wires. Still, she’s not ignorant of what she’s looking at, not unaware of how it works or how it fits together.

What did Ray say he was having problems with? Propulsion and accuracy?

It was too powerful and not accurate enough.

Well, she thinks, neither of those things are a problem if what she has in mind works. She’s going to have to move quickly once it’s done.

She removes her communications unit from her ear and puts it in her purse.

There’s a screwdriver on the workbench, and Felicity uses it to pry open the control panel on the gauntlet so she can see how it works. As she quickly categorizes the intricate workings of various wires and components, she accidentally stumbles upon the explanation for why Ray can’t fine-tune the controls. That won’t help her, though, so she leaves it be.

She’s frantically twisting two wires together when she hears Ray coming back. For a moment, panic skewers through her, but then the leads are connected and the gauntlet is powering up. It sputters once, then twice.

Ray appears in the doorway with drinks in his hand the exact moment Felicity lets go of the gauntlet. It zooms out of her hand, and while Ray was right about the accuracy being off, it ends up not mattering. The contraption strikes him right between the eyes, and Felicity lets out a very real shriek as he stumbles backwards. Both of the glasses shatter when they hit the floor, spilling liquid everywhere, and Ray falls.

Felicity doesn’t take the time to check and see if he’s still conscious. She starts with the computer, plugging in the USB drive hidden in her lipstick tube and begins copying any files earmarked as belonging to the Lilac Project. While the transfer is happening, she turns her attention to finding the physical copies, yanking open drawers of the metal cabinet and sifting through pages of blueprints. What she’s looking for is in the third drawer down. Felicity rolls it up, tucks it underneath her arm, and then slides her earbud back in her ear.

“I have them,” she tells Tommy, carefully stepping over the mess of glass and liquor on the floor and stooping down beside Ray. She breathes out a sigh when she puts her fingers to Ray’s neck and finds a pulse. “Ray’s unconscious. If I stay, I can make it look like an accident. If I go, I can get out of here.”

“Burn the blueprints and get downstairs,” Tommy says. “We can’t risk that your cover hasn’t been blown.”

She thoroughly deletes the relevant files from Ray’s computer system, grabs the USB stick from the computer, and slips it into her purse. Her hands are shaking and her heart is racing as she briskly leaves Ray’s workshop and heads towards the elevator. She presses the down button anxiously, expecting any minute that alarms will start blaring or that Ray will stumble out into the hallway.

The elevator doors open, and Felicity forces herself to take deep, calming breaths as she hits the button for the lobby. As the elevator begins to move, Felicity pulls out the blueprints and quickly examines them. She’s not sure what she’s looking for. She knows Division having access to drone technology cannot possibly be a _good_ thing, but what on earth could _Malcolm_ be planning with it? Division is supposed to operate under the radar, off the books. They’re supposed to be undetectable, untraceable.

Huge explosions from drone missiles don’t seem particularly untraceable to Felicity. They seem violent and deadly. And depending on how many drones Palmer Tech is planning on making, depending on how much intelligence Malcolm could find on world leaders and where they are, depending on how cloaked these drones are…

Malcolm could…

Malcolm could metaphorically point a gun at the whole world and hold it hostage.

Oliver finds her the moment she’s stepped out of the elevator. His mask is gone, and she all but runs into his arms. Leaning back, he lifts her just enough for her feet to rise off of the ground as he drags her a few yards down the hall and behind a pillar so they’ll be mostly hidden from sight. She seeks as much comfort as she can from the embrace, not wanting it to end but knowing that it has to at some point.

When Felicity pulls away, she puts a finger to her lips, then points to her ear. Oliver nods as she passes him the papers. There are a million things she wants to say to him, but none that she can. There’s no time. Instead, she tips her face up and lets him kiss her. Wrapping her fingers around the material of his jacket, she vows to remember only _this kiss_ from tonight. This is the one that is real. This is the one that matters.

Oliver only has one free hand, and he uses it to cup her cheek. His other arm bands around her waist, holding her tightly to him.

It takes every ounce of willpower Felicity possesses to tear her mouth away from his.

_Soon_ , Oliver’s eyes promise her. _Soon_.

_Go_ , she mouths. She lightly touches her fingers to her lips. Oliver backs away, and Felicity takes a step as if to follow him before she catches herself.

Oliver’s eyes dart to something—someone—behind her, and his face pales.

Felicity turns.

Tommy stands several yards down the hall, jaw clenched, eyes misty, gun trained on Oliver.

Felicity glances back and forth between them. Oliver stands still, unmoving. He doesn’t go for his gun. He doesn’t tell Tommy to lower his weapon. He doesn’t say or do _anything_. He just stands there.

Felicity recognizes the look on his face. He looks destroyed. Like the fact that he and Tommy are standing on opposite sides of a gun just finally sunk in and it’s a soul-crushing realization.

It’s heart-wrenching for Felicity. She doesn’t know what they’re going to do, but she’s standing between two of the most important people in her life and hoping against hope that they don’t kill each other.

And then Tommy lowers the gun.

Felicity exhales the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She glances from Tommy back to Oliver, but Oliver’s already gone.

Tommy’s breathing heavily, shoulders rising and falling even as he slides his gun back into its holster. She’s hesitant as she moves towards him.

When he looks at her, his eyes are dark. He takes a quick, almost menacing step into her personal space, reaching for her arm, and she flinches, jerking backwards.

He looks like she slapped him.

“What the _hell_ do you think you’re doing, Felicity?” he asks in a low, harsh tone.

She squares her shoulders, secure in the certainty that he’s not going to lay a hand on her. He’s _not_ going to hurt her. He’s not a monster. He’s not his _father._ “The right thing,” she tells him, feeling the conviction bleeding through her words as she speaks.

Tommy runs a hand through his hair. “This is fire that you’re playing with. You are going to get yourself _killed_ , Felicity. Or worse. And I can’t just stand by and let...”

He takes a deep breath. “We need to go. Now. This isn’t the place for this conversation.”

Tommy’s hand on her back feels oppressive as he escorts her out of the building and into the waiting van. She climbs through the sliding door into the back while Tommy hops into the passenger seat.

Barry’s there waiting for her with liquorice and a quick hug. She hands him the USB drive with unsteady hands. It’s his job to check that everything is there before the files are erased. Felicity watches carefully as he works.

She sits in silence for the first fifteen minutes of the drive back to Division. She’s trembling, and she hates it.

Carefully, Barry wraps a scratchy blanket around her shoulders. “It’s over, Felicity,” he tells her softly, with a sad smile. “You’re okay.”

Even as she nods her agreement, Felicity knows he’s wrong. It’s not over.

It’s just beginning.

* * *

Tommy finds himself completely unable to say a single word to Felicity during the entire trip back to Division. He’s still reeling. The words _Oliver’s not dead_ have been echoing in his head since that moment in the hallway.

And Felicity was—

He cuts off that thought. Nothing good can come from this knowledge.

Shado meets them when the elevator doors open onto the trainee floor.

“Barry,” Tommy says, feeling like a stranger in his own body. “Walk Felicity back to her room.”

Barry blinks in surprise, “But don’t you want to debrief her?”

Tommy very intentionally doesn’t look at Felicity. “No, I want her back in her room. It’s four in the morning. Shado can debrief her tomorrow.”

In silence, Tommy and Shado watch Barry and Felicity start down the hall.

Shado puts a hand on Tommy’s arm. “What happened?”

“She did what she had to do,” Tommy answers. Tense, he pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Fight me,” Shado says.

Tommy glances down at his suit. “I’m not dressed—”

Impatient, Shado grabs his jacket and slides it off of his shoulders. She tosses it over a training dummy. “Fight. Me.” She repeats. “You’re angry. You’re tense, and you’re of no use to anyone emotionally compromised. Let some aggression out.”

“I’m not sparring with you just to let out aggression,” he snaps, and that’s when her fist flies at his face.

He catches her fist in his hand and for a minute satisfaction flows through him before she uses her leg to sweep his feet out from under him and sends him crashing onto the mat behind him.

Tommy drags air back into his lungs slowly, groaning as he sits up. Shado’s standing in front of him, hand held out in a silent offer to help him up. He ignores it. He’s not pissed at _her_ , he’s just pissed. From the variety of emotions he gets to choose from, anger is the easiest. It’s the simplest.

He is _not_ physically fighting her while he’s angry. He is not that person. He is not that kind of _man_.

She goes at him again, but this time he is ready. He deflects, backing up so they’re more fully on the mats. If she’s gonna push this, he isn’t going to run the risk that she falls on the concrete floor and not on padding.

They fight like it’s a conversation. She pushes, he deflects, and she keeps pushing. He should rightly be exhausted, but there’s enough unused adrenaline, enough unspoken emotion, enough _anger_ and _hurt_ and _pain_ to keep him moving through his exhaustion. When he lashes out at her it’s with strength; when she deflects him, it’s with gentle precision.

She uses all of his pressure points against him. “Get offensive,” she tells him after she throws him to the floor again. “Stop _reacting_. Start making decisions.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

Shado looks him right in the eyes. “You won’t.”

He takes a swing at her, and she dodges. “Good. Again.”

He does. Again. And again. And again and again and _again_ until they both fall over from practically blissful exhaustion.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Shado asks, breathless. She’s lying on the mat beside him, both of them staring up at the ceiling.

It’s Division’s quiet hours. She’s revealed the signal jammer that will keep any unfriendly ears from listening. They’re safe. He’s safe.

“Oliver’s alive.”

He hears her let out a long, slow breath. A glance over at her reveals her clearly processing that information. “And you’re angry with him for being alive? Or at Malcolm for telling you he was dead.”

_At Felicity for—_

He squelches that thought. He has to protect her. And protecting her from this—from her brilliantly stupid self—means he can’t even risk saying the words out loud.

Because Felicity…

Felicity doesn’t deserve what will happen to her if Malcolm finds out. No matter what she’s done with Oliver, for Oliver—and hell, the image of her kissing him will just _not go away_ —she doesn’t deserve the hell Malcolm will throw her into.

“He doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Tommy says finally. “He doesn’t… he’s going to get himself killed for real, and I don’t think he cares.”

“Have you considered the possibility,” Shado’s tone is careful, measured, like everything about her, “That part of why Oliver is doing this is _you_? That Oliver wants to destroy Division for _you_?”

“I don’t even know if Oliver knew I was alive when he started this,” Tommy tells her.

“How did he look when you saw him?” Shado asks. “Was he looking at a ghost?”

Tommy slowly shakes his head. “I was the only one looking at a ghost.” He clenches his fist, letting his nails bite into his skin. He thinks of Felicity’s betrayal, of the way Oliver looked at him in that hallway. He can feel the gun in his hands, feel the weight of it. Pulling the weapon was instinct. Oliver is Division Enemy Number One. He is supposed to be shot on sight.

But those thoughts are Malcolm, not Tommy.

_You don’t point a gun at anything you don’t intend to destroy_.

And _Tommy_ doesn’t want to destroy Oliver. Not an Oliver who is alive and breathing.

Tommy’s world feels just a little less suffocating with the knowledge that Oliver is still in it.

* * *

Sin is silent as two Division goons escort her into Malcolm Merlyn’s office.

_Or rather, the ninth circle of hell_ , she thinks. That she’s been summoned here is either incredibly good or horrifically bad.

“Cindy,” Malcolm says with a smile as she enters. “Good work on this latest mission. I’m very impressed.”

Sin bristles at his constant refusal to use her real name. But impressed means ‘not dead’ so she holds her tongue. “Thank you,” she says instead.

“Do you have what I asked for?”

Sin pulls out a flash drive, sets it down on Malcolm’s desk, and slides it over to him with her forefinger.

“And my son believes this was destroyed?”

She nods. She doesn’t _like_ deceiving Tommy, but disobeying Malcolm is a worse option.

Sin really hopes this is just a loyalty test. Will she follow Malcolm over her mentor?

“Excellent,” Malcolm says with a smile that makes Sin’s stomach swerve. “This won’t be forgotten, Cindy. You can count on it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are basically two options when writing Arrow!Ray Palmer into a story. I ended up deciding to use this particular characterization because of what this story needed.


End file.
